Crains March 26 2012
March 26, 2012 http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/blogs/red-wrap/2012/03/tapping-into-tourists/
Tapping into tourists By Erik Ipsen In a still-soft real estate market, developers are continuing to turn to tourists to fill space, making hotels one of the safest and most common bets in town. Gary Barnett famously will devote the lower floors at One57, the city’s tallest residential tower-to-be in midtown to a hotel; and downtown the new (as of December) owner of the old AIG headquarters at 70 Pine St. is thinking about following suit, according to the New York Times. Under one possible scenario, developer Metro Loft could use the lower reaches for a 300-room hostelry, leaving the better spaces upstairs for conversion to 970 rental apartments. Not that the hot midtown south market exactly needs it, but there too hotels are becoming increasingly important drivers. The 168-room NoMad Hotel is set to open at 1170 Broadway at West 28th Street next week, according to The Wall Street Journal. The paper notes a half dozen office-to-hotel conversions are currently in the works in the neighborhood and in downtown. Prominent on that list are Marriott’s planned conversion of the former home of MetLife, the Clock Tower on Madison Square Park, and plans by GB Lodging to turn a gorgeous old wreck of a building overlooking City Hall Park at 5 Beekman St. into a hotel. Meanwhile, at the top end of the residential market, there is more evidence of top-quality properties selling “fast and high,” as Kirk Henckels of Stribling Private Brokerage put it in summing up his firm’s report on high-end residential sales in Manhattan last year, according to Crain’s. In Brooklyn Heights, Truman Capote’s former house at 70 Willow St. recently sold for $12.5 million, a new record for the borough, according to The Times. Built in 1839, before the age of central heat, the place boasts no less than 11 fireplaces.
Tapping into tourists By Erik Ipsen In a still-soft real estate market, developers are continuing to turn to tourists to fill space, making hotels one of the safest and most common bets in town. Gary Barnett famously will devote the lower floors at One57, the city’s tallest residential tower-to-be in midtown to a hotel; and downtown the new (as of December) owner of the old AIG headquarters at 70 Pine St. is thinking about following suit, according to the New York Times. Under one possible scenario, developer Metro Loft could use the lower reaches for a 300-room hostelry, leaving the better spaces upstairs for conversion to 970 rental apartments. Not that the hot midtown south market exactly needs it, but there too hotels are becoming increasingly important drivers. The 168-room NoMad Hotel is set to open at 1170 Broadway at West 28th Street next week, according to The Wall Street Journal. The paper notes a half dozen office-to-hotel conversions are currently in the works in the neighborhood and in downtown. Prominent on that list are Marriott’s planned conversion of the former home of MetLife, the Clock Tower on Madison Square Park, and plans by GB Lodging to turn a gorgeous old wreck of a building overlooking City Hall Park at 5 Beekman St. into a hotel. Meanwhile, at the top end of the residential market, there is more evidence of top-quality properties selling “fast and high,” as Kirk Henckels of Stribling Private Brokerage put it in summing up his firm’s report on high-end residential sales in Manhattan last year, according to Crain’s. In Brooklyn Heights, Truman Capote’s former house at 70 Willow St. recently sold for $12.5 million, a new record for the borough, according to The Times. Built in 1839, before the age of central heat, the place boasts no less than 11 fireplaces.
