Stalled Residential Tower in Lower Manhattan to Rise Next to Woolworth Building
(Courtesy Silverstein Properties / Bing Maps)
A giant residential skyscraper is slated to join Manhattan’s skyline— rising more than 130 feet above its neighbor, the Woolworth Building. Developer Silverstein Properties announced today that $950 million in funding has been secured to move forward with the construction of the Robert A.M. Stern Architects-designed tower at 30 Park Place in Lower Manhattan.
Could Chad Oppenheim’s Slab Hotel Rise Above the Williamsburg Bridge?
Chad Oppenheim’s design for Williamsburghotel. (Courtesy Oppenheim)
After a two-year lull since we broke the story about a potential 440-foot-tall boutique hotel adjacent the Williamsburg Bridge, it looks like developer Juan Figueroa is moving forward with his plans to build a 250-room hotel next to his under-renovation Williamsburgh Savings Bank. The Real Deal reported that the boutique hotel could check in guests as soon as 2015.
A Room with a View: A Boutique Hotel to Rise Along the Gowanus
Gowanus Inn & Yard, rendering and site. (Courtesy Matt Abramcyk via Capital NY / Courtesy Bing Maps)
The contaminated waters of the Gowanus Canal—nor the threat of flooding from future storms like Hurricane Sandy—are deterring developers from building right up on the canal’s edge. In fact, a new swanky boutique hotel is about to wash up on the shores of the Gowanus Canal. This comes at a time when several new hotels are in the works for Brooklyn over the next few years, including the Rockwell Place Hotel in the Brooklyn Downtown Cultural District and Selldorf Architect’s revival of the Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn Heights.
Frank Gehry Unveils Mixed-Use Tower For Santa Monica
Frank Gehry’s 22-story tower for Santa Monica. (Courtesy Gehry Partners)
OMA and Robert A.M. Stern are not the only starchitects zeroing in on Santa Monica. Frank Gehry is designing a 22-story, 244-foot-tall tower on a 1.9 acre site on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. Plans for the project were submitted to the city yesterday, according to the Santa Monica Planning Department. The tower, located just a block from the beach and around the corner from the 3rd Street Promenade, would house a 125-room hotel, 22 condos, and two stories of retail and restaurants. A 36,000-square-foot art museum, incorporating two landmarked structures, would also be built just north of the tower.
Thomas Leeser Designs a Hotel for Brooklyn’s BAM Cultural District
Even though Brooklyn has morphed into a hub of cultural activity, there has been a notable shortage of hotels to serve the spike in visitors, especially in south Brooklyn. But this will soon change. The New York Post reported that a new 200-room hotel, designed by Thomas Leeser, is in the works for the Brooklyn Downtown Cultural District, which recently saw plans for new towers by TEN Arquitectos.
The hotel, with asymmetrical splits in the facade, will replace a five-story building at 95 Rockwell Place, and include a basement performance space, a rooftop bar, a banquet hall, and a restaurant that looks onto an outdoor arts plaza. It will be in a prime location—right next to The Theater for a New Audience and close to a 32-story mixed-use complex from Two Trees and a 50,000-square-feet cultural space that will be occupied by BAM, 651 ARTS, and the Brooklyn Public Library.
Developer Second Development Services (SDS) predicts they will break ground next fall and complete construction within two years.
Chateau Hotel is Latest in Long Line of Chicago SROs At Risk
The Chateau Hotel in Chicago. (Chicago Crime Scenes / Flickr)
Single Room Occupancy hotels are a dying breed in Chicago. Notoriously undermanaged and generally unpopular among immediate neighbors, the majority of these base-service dwellings have been condemned or rehabbed into other residential uses over the past decade.
The fate of the Chateau Hotel, one of the last SRO hotels on Chicago’s North Side, looks to be leaning toward the latter.
Guests Could Soon Check in at Brooklyn’s Hotel Bossert
Hotel Bossert (Courtesy of Paul Kieper/Flickr)
The Italian Renaissance Revival-style Hotel Bossert, once one of the swankiest hotels in Brooklyn, will soon be welcoming guests once again. Two developers, David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit of the Chetrit Group, bought the property from the Watchtower Society this past November for $81 million, and now have the go-ahead to turn the property back into a hotel. On Friday, the Board of Standards and Appeal granted the developers a variance to change the certificate of occupancy. According to Brownstoner, Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman + Associates Architects is the architect of record. But, we just heard that Selldorf Architects will lead the renovation of this 1909 building designed by Palmer & Hornbostel, which will involve preserving the facade, lobby, and reception area, updating the rooms with new design finishes and amenities, and reviving the Marine Roof back to a restaurant and lounge. If all goes well, the hotel will be up and running by this summer.
Ian Schrager Pens Deal To Build 25-Story Lower East Side Tower
Site of Ian Schrager’s planned tower. (Courtesy Google)
Boutique hotel pioneer Ian Schrager plans to expand his newest hotel concept, Public, to New York with a new 25-story hotel and residential tower on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Schrager and investors paid $50 million for the site at 215 Chrystie Street, once a garden for an adjacent low-income tower at 10 Stanton Street. The land was sold after tenants and the tower owner struck a deal to build a rooftop recreation area and extend affordability of the units. Schrager gained fame in the 1970s for operating the famous Studio 54 nightclub and has more recently developed the Gramercy Park Hotel and the Herzog & de Meuron-designed 40 Bond condo building, where he lives in the penthouse.
A Fan From Indy Gets His Feelers Hurt
The JW Marriott hotel in Indianapolis. (Courtesy Marriott)
Last month in this column, we conjured up a fake rivalry between Cincinnati, Cleveland, and East Lansing, MI, as they all have high profile projects opening this fall. Of all the blabber we’ve scattered across these pages, that piece stirred up the most voices. One fan wanted to know, “What about Indianapolis?” In our opinion, it’s a classic quantity versus quality situation. There’s a lot of development going on in Indianapolis right now, including City Way, along with a lot of forgettable architecture. There was the opening of the JW Marriott, with its nifty, curved blue glass curtain wall, design by HOK and CSO Architects. But does a convention hotel really stand up against starchitect designed museums and boutique art hotels? Not in this case.
New Life Comes With New Name for Purple Hotel
Lincolnwood’s Purple Hotel, celebrated in a mid-century postcard. (Courtesy Koo & Associates)
A rose by any other name may still smell as sweet, but what about a violet? Suburban Chicago’s Purple Hotel, rescued this Spring from dereliction and impending demolition, may change its name to complement its transformation under architects Koo and Associates. The firm solicited name suggestions via Facebook, looking for “something mid-century and fresh.” One early commenter declared, “Renaming the Purple Hotel will go over about as well as renaming the Sears Tower.”
High Holiday
The world's tallest Holiday Inn under construction in Manhattan. (Rendering via ReBusiness Online)
We heard rumblings, but now it’s official—a 400-room, 50-story high Holiday Inn will be joining the ranks of downtown hotels at 99 Washington Street near the World Trade Center. It will be the world’s tallest Holiday Inn and the go-to architect for New York hotels, Gene Kaufman of Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates Architects, will be doing the honors. Kaufman’s other high-profile hotel projects, the Chelsea Hotel renovation and the new Hyatt near Union Square, seem to be moving full steam ahead, despite legal wrangling at the Chelsea. The Holiday Inn will likely open to guests by the end of this year.
Sneak Peek> Dream Downtown Opens Softly
The Dream Downtown (Branden Klayko/AN).
On our way to the grand opening of the extended High Line last week, we couldn’t help but notice the lights were on at the Dream Downtown, hotelier Vikram Chatwal’s newest luxury outpost. While the soft-opening was reserved for Chatwal friends and family, the official opening later this month is sure to draw out the denizens of New York nightlife.
Inside the lobby, a glass-bottomed pool diffuses light from the building’s interior courtyard, accessed through a lushly-planted sliver at the back of the lobby. In the courtyard, a teak-heavy lounge opens up onto the pool deck complete with its own white sand beach, where Vikram himself was lounging on a plush chaise. On the roof, a still-under-wraps venue–with what the Dream is touting as one of Manhattan’s finest views–is sure to be popular. Among the amenities that will open later this year is Romera New York, which is expected to offer a 12-course prix fixe for $245. The hotel will feature 316 rooms, but some are still being finished up.
Originally designed by Albert Ledner in 1966–the same architect as the neighboring Maritime Hotel and the nearby O’Toole Building–and last used as a homeless shelter, Handel Architects has reclad the round-windowed building in stainless steel, earning the structure the nickname of “The Cheesegrater.”
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