Just months after the City Council paved the way for big residential projects in Chelsea, gas stations are quickly disappearing as developers seek large plots to capitalize on the housing boom.

In the last few months, an Exxon station on 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue, a Gulf station on 28th Street and Tenth Avenue, a Mobil station on 42nd Street and Eleventh Avenue, and another gas station on 53rd Street and Tenth Avenue have closed, inconveniencing drivers near key entrances to the West Side Highway and contributing to the recent run-up in city gas prices.

“Competition is a factor in these gas prices,” the executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, Ralph Bombardiere, said.

The far West Side has more gas stations than most parts of Manhattan, but the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation into an upscale residential enclave is in part possible because gas stations – with their unused air space, relatively large square footage, and prime locations – are seen increasingly as weak business enterprises.

“The property in Manhattan is more valuable as something else besides a gas station,” Mr. Bombardiere said. “We’ve been closing stations steadily.”

In 2005, Manhattan had a total of 58 stations, four fewer than in 2002, according to the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs. The numbers for 2006 aren’t out yet, but with the West Side and Chelsea closings, the number could drop to close to 50 stations to serve the tens of thousands of driving commuters and taxi and delivery truck drivers who enter Manhattan every day.

The city has seen similar transformations in recent years along Houston Street and on the Upper East Side along First Avenue. Gas stations have been demolished to make way for apartment towers, hotels, and office buildings. Even the emblematic Gaseteria stations have thinned out across the boroughs.

To make matters worse for drivers, gas prices are rising across the country. The Energy Department announced in its seasonal forecast for energy prices that the average gallon of gasoline will be 25 cents more this summer than last, at $2.62. A gallon at most gas stations in New York City are already selling for substantially more than that. With demand for oil outpacing supply and global security risks to the energy infrastructure, gas prices will be high throughout 2006, the Energy Department said. Another terrorist attack or natural disaster could make things far worse, the report said.

Gas is already carce on the booming Upper West Side. There is only one gas station on the entire West Side between 50th Street and the northern tip of Central Park. The area is known to have the highest gas prices around.

An independent distributor for Mac Tools, Steven Pabon, who was delivering automotive tools along

10th Avenue yesterday, said the closings are forcing him to spend more time during the workday looking for a gas station, often forcing him to drive well off his path of scheduled deliveries.

“It’s causing trouble for everyone,” Mr. Pabon said. He said he was losing some money on the extra driving, but that the difference is nothing compared to the escalating gas prices.

“Its just absolutely insane. Right now, it’s up to $3.30 a gallon. It’s really hard to find diesel gas, as well,” he said. “We have to do other things to make up for that cost: We’ve had to raise prices.”

The closed Exxon station at 23rd Street is being developed into a 145-foot apartment building by Leviev-Boymelgreen. The company’s development director, Sara Mirski, said the firm Gerner, Kronick, and Valcarcel is designing it.

“Clearly, they are worth more as apartment buildings than as gas stations,” she said. “We are always looking for development opportunities. … Land is finite, even contaminated land.”

The other lots do not yet have permits for buildings, the Department of Buildings said, but neighbors said they’ve been told the lots will be developed into apartment buildings. For now, the fuel tanks and dangerous materials are being removed from the areas, according to permits from the department.

The new zoning guidelines for West Chelsea passed by the City Council last June require that 27% of new housing be “affordable.”

The guidelines allow the development of the High Line into a 1.6-mile park. Construction began this week on the new attraction, which will run from the Gansevoort Market to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The executive for sales on the West Side for Halstead Properties, Michael Goldenberg, said gas stations and especially parking lots are prime real estate locations because there is little demolition necessary to begin construction.

“I wish we had some more parking lots up here,” he said. “We would buy them up in a minute.”