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The 5,500-square-foot space, which is to be designed by Richard Gluckman, is slated to open in March 2007, according to Rachel Vancelette, director of Lambert’s current New York space at 564 W. 25th St.

Vancelette says the gallery began looking for a new space last September, with plans to expand its program in New York. Lambert, who celebrates his 40 Anniversary as a dealer this year, and whose sizable private collection of contemporary art is on view in a private museum in Avignon, France, opened his present New York space three years ago. According to Vencelette, Lambert has not yet decided whether he will retain that space after opening the new one.

Vancelette says Gluckman’s design plans for the new, column-free space include adding even more skylights to already numerous ones that exist, evoking Lambert’s light-filled gallery at 108, Rue Vieille du Temple in Paris, the ceiling of which is made almost entirely of glass.

Among Gluckman’s other current projects in Chelsea are a new space for Larry Gagosian, as well as the future location of Marlborough Gallery’s Chelsea branch, on the first two floors of the new Chelsea Arts Tower, which opens in Aug. on West 25th Street, across from Lambert’s current New York space.

Lambert is known for showing both blue-chip contemporary artists such as Sol LeWitt and Jenny Holzer (whom he will show in a joint exhibition with New York’s Cheim and Read gallery this May), as well as young and emerging international artists. Recent exhibitions in the gallery on West 25th Street include Stanley Brouwn, a conceptualist who first became known in the 1960s, and young filmmaker and photographer Salla Tykka.

“We want to so something similar to what we do in Paris,” says Vancelette, of the flexible new space on 21st Street, which will contain both a main gallery and a project room. “We want to be able to do things like provide public access to our video archives, places where people can make choices about what they would like to view. We’re going to be expanding our program in New York, taking on more artists, and giving our artists more opportunities.”

The gallery would not reveal the price per square foot, but Gagosian Gallery, which recently signed a 10-year lease on a 9,200-square-foot space down the block at 528 W. 21st St., is reportedly paying $52 per square foot.

“I did their original deal on 25th Street, so I’ve known the Lambert gallery for quite some time,” says Grubb & Ellis’ Stuart Siegel, who brokered the deal.

“There’s not a lot of ground-floor space available in Chelsea and the gallery only wanted ground floor. When I knew this space would be available, they were my first call. We knew this was the right space for them.”

On the stretch of 21st Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, Lambert will join esteemed New York dealer Paula Cooper, one of the first arrivals in Chelsea back in the mid-1990s, and Gagosian, whose 21st spot will be his third gallery in New York (and second Chelsea space).

Other galleries on the block include Tanya Bonakdar, soon to expand into the ground floor of its second-floor space, and recent addition Casey Kaplan, which moved there from 14th Street.