One viewer of last night’s season premiere of “Project Runway,” the reality television show hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum, had something on his mind other than fashion.

Developer David Picket, of the Gotham Organization, donated several apartments in his Midtown South luxury rental building, Atlas, for use in the show’s 13-episode run on the cable network Bravo.

As 16 aspiring fashion designers compete against one another for a chance to break into the fashion world – and win $100,000 and the chance to design their own fashion line – the television program will contain footage from Mr. Picket’s 47-story apartment building, its rooftop deck, lobby, and elsewhere.

The developer is betting that the exposure from the show will enhance his building’s image and help brand his other properties. He told The New York Sun that donating several one-bedroom and studio apartments to the program, which was filmed between May and July, cost him about $20,000 from his rent rolls.

Mr. Picket said successful marketing of the building’s image could help generate an extra dollar or two of rent per square foot.”On a large building, that’s a lot of money. Three, four, or five hundred thousand a year,” he said.

“From the start, we tried to make connections between this building and the fashion industry, mostly because that’s where the building is, in the middle of the fashion district,” Mr. Picket said. “It is a way of associating ourselves with an industry with some sex appeal and some edginess.

“I don’t think anyone who rented here is going to say, ‘I rented here because they had “Project Runway” here.'” Mr. Picket said. “But there is a holistic message. There is a sex appeal.”

Gotham is not the first developer to brand through reality television. The Trump Tower has appeared regularly on NBC’s “The Apprentice,” which is hosted by Donald Trump. Yesterday, Mr. Trump told the Sun that the program has helped transform Trump Tower from “just a location” to a “world-famous site.”

“Hosting a reality TV show enhances a property, publicizes it, and gives it greater identity,” he said. “Trump Tower was already on the map, but since the show, there are crowds waiting outside regularly and a lot of activity within.”

But industry experts disagree about whether marketing apartments through reality television can increase the property’s value, or by how much.

Gary Malin, the chief operating officer of Citi-Habitats, a firm with the city’s largest rental portfolio, said he has never heard of anyone renting an apartment based on its appearance on television.

He said that developers looking to “juice up rents a bit” might have some luck with luxury amenities, but that a television-generated image was highly unlikely to motivate a renter.

“On the rental end of our business, it doesn’t seem to be on the radar screen at all,” he said. Mr. Malin said that price, size, and location were the more important criteria.

“I think it’s more a matter of that the building is going to sell itself,” he said.

A real estate consultant, Paul Purcell, of Braddock and Purcell, said the value of marketing, advertising, and public relations is difficult to measure in the real estate business.

“Can you directly attribute it to a couple of dollars per square foot?” he asked.”That might be ambitious thinking. But it is creative and ambitious.

“I work across the street from the Trump Building,” Mr. Purcell said. “Every day, no matter when I walk by, there are people photographing the Trump sign. A lot of that comes from the reality show. There is better name recognition, and there is fun associated with it.”

Shaun Osher of Core Group Marketing, a firm that specializes in marketing new developments, said reality TV marketing would be effective for a luxury rental like Atlas.

“For that particular site, it works,” Mr. Osher said. “It adds a certain cache to the building. Twenty-thousand dollars for some free p.r. doesn’t really hurt.”

Mr. Picket, the developer of Gotham, said that it is a challenge to stand out in the luxury rental market. “As developers, there is very little that differentiates the luxury rental market in terms of product, in terms of four walls.We all do a little different things, but the size of the units is the same, the flooring is the same, the kitchens are the same,” he said. “You differentiate yourself on the margin, and you do that by doing things like this.”