A quick glance at West 12th Street near the Hudson River affords a view of two disparate worlds common to the Far West Village. East of Washington Street lies the West Village in its classic form — a row of small brick townhouses mostly unchanged for decades. To the west, on the Hudson River backdrop, there is construction.

With a historic district restricting development in much of the West Village, developers are increasingly filling in the gaps in the less-restricted Far West Village, transforming the onetime industrial and shipping hub into a locale marked by high-end condos with cutting edge architecture.

Three developers are working to erect new condominiums targeted in part at the wealthy artists and celebrities that are increasingly gravitating toward the neighborhood. Related Companies is clearing space for a 15-story tower on the site of a former Superior Ink factory, and two boutique-style luxury condo buildings are planned to rise across the street, making the westernmost block on West 12th Street a bright emblem of the flurry of development activity in the neighborhood.

Sandwiched between the West Village and the Hudson River, celebrities have come in droves to the area, attracted by the proximity to Hudson River Park, generously spacious apartments, cobbled streets, and the pricey architecture typified by the two glass Richard Meier towers on Perry and West streets and smaller, boutique buildings. Names such as Martha Stewart, Nicole Kidman, and Calvin Klein fill the roster of the Richard Meier project, dubbed a “celebrity dorm” by neighbors, and artist Julian Schnabel is building an 11-story addition to a former stable on West 11th Street, drawing the ire of preservationists.

Real estate analysts say much of the interest in the area is driven by pent-up pressure from the West Village, a scorching residential hot spot that developers crave but are generally unable to touch due to the historic district, which ensures few major changes to the buildings that help define the neighborhood’s character.

As such, new development has been concentrated west of Washington Street, the boundary for the historic district.

“If you look at where the historic district ends, you’re only talking about one block where you can build,” an architect and developer in the area, Michael Walsdorf, said. “It’s a fairly tight, small margin.”

Mr. Walsdorf’s FLAnk development company is currently demolishing two townhomes recently owned by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg to make room for a seven-story, 12-unit building. In the adjacent lot, architect and developer Cary Tamarkin is hoping to soon transform a vacant space into a 10-story, five-unit concrete tower with enormous steel windows overlooking the river.

With four units in the building larger than 6,000 square feet, Mr. Tamarkin said the people who fill his condos “tend to be in the arts, usually successful people in the arts because they tend to be expensive.”

From the Richard Meier buildings to the smaller developments such as those of Messrs. Tamarkin and Waldorf, the opportunity for large, spacious apartments in a generally low-rise neighborhood is a key factor in making the area so attractive, according to a vice president at the Corcoran Group who lists properties in the area, Jon Capobianco.

“You have opportunities to buy larger spaces — 2,500 square feet and up — and in a new building there’s the opportunity always to combine units,” he said.

A longtime neighborhood resident who lives near Related Companies’ development site, George Cominskie, said the narrow streets and low-rise neighborhood character that has appealed to developers are leading to overdevelopment.

“There is always such of a thing as too much of a good thing,” Mr. Cominskie, who wants the historic district expanded, said. “The West Village could be hitting that point where any more development is going to ruin what made this all so attractive.”