Rendering of 60 West 39th Street (center) as seen from Bryant Park | Credit: Peter Poon Architects (PPA)
In 2019, when the city was cracking down on Airbnb hosts and looking to curb hotel development in manufacturing districts, the forecast appeared sunny for hotels in Manhattan's central areas. A September 2019 story from the Wall Street Journal explains that hotels in NYC are enjoying their highest occupancy rates since 2000, even with the addition of some 22,500 rooms during the past five years. Fast forward eight months and the city's hospitality industry is suffering from the most challenging market in generations. The effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have greatly impaired business travel and impaired the city's tourism industry as potential visitors are restricted/wary of travel, museums and attractions closed, and Broadway shuttered until early 2021.
In April 2019, the hotel research and analytics firm STR pegged the total number of rooms in the city at 119,103 with hundreds of more rooms in the pipeline. With the hospitality industry greatly impaired, many developers and hotel companies may be rethinking their development plans. However, continuing to move forward at 58-60 West 39th Street, a 173-room hotel is under construction and now a few floors out of the ground.
July 2020 (CityRealty)
The demolished building at 58-60 West 39th Street in the center left and the Refinery Hotel to the right.
The 34-story project will offer guests and visitors postcard views of Bryant Park, the Empire State Building, and the Manhattan skyline. Renderings by the tower's designer, Peter Poon Architects (PPA), show there will be a high-floor restaurant/bar with an accessory terrace facing north.
The midblock site is close to Times Square, Penn Station, and Grand Central Terminal. It was purchased in 2016 by Long Island-based LLC, H HOTEL for $25.1M, and the pre-existing 5-story loft building was brought down the year after. Permits were filed in 2018 calling for a 457-foot-tall tower set back from the street and culminating with a curved roofline.
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Dubbed H Hotel W39, images and permits hint that this won't be a run-of-the-mill hotel.
Renderings by PPA show a slender glass-clad tower with curved corners, two cantilevers, and a large south-facing terrace on the 18th floor facing Midtown and Bryant Park. Renderings differ from the approved zoning, hinting that the cantilevered section overhanging the adjacent Refinery Hotel has not yet been approved. A sectional drawing from the city-approved ZD-1 shows lower levels with incredible ceiling heights of 18 feet. Also unique for a NYC hotel development is that there will be a row of balconies that face south downtown.
The submitted floor schedule shows there will be just five rooms per floor from levels 4 through 16 and three rooms per floor from level 18 through 27. However, this may reflect a partially-submitted application.
The submitted floor schedule shows there will be just five rooms per floor from levels 4 through 16 and three rooms per floor from level 18 through 27. However, this may reflect a partially-submitted application.
The blocks encircling Bryant Park have several new developments recently finished. Most notably, the HFZ-developed condo The Bryant and the 61-unit rental ML House opened for occupancy within the last 18 months. New tenants to the area include Salesforce, the Bank of China, and a Whole Foods Market. Bank of America is also expanding across Sixth Avenue to the former HBO headquarter building at 1100 Sixth Avenue.
Allied Partners' vision to redevelop 50 West 40th Street with a commercial tower
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