Indiana-based Maefield Development has filed building permits to expand the Times Square DoubleTree Hotel at 1568 Broadway by some 350 rooms. The expansion will nearly double the hotel's room count to 745 suites, and will be facilitated by the redistribution of existing bulk and likely smaller room sizes. The development will also elevate the landmarked Palace Theater by 29 feet. The tower was built around the historic theater by way of a steel and concrete bridge-like structure. The theater's complicated relocation was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission earlier this year.
Per building database website Emporis, the 46-story skyscraper was built as an Embassy Suites hotel and finished in 1990, at the tail-end of Post-Modernism's heyday. Fox & Fowle Architects, now two separate firms: CookFox and FXFOWLE, were the designers, and provided an elegant curved slab tower accented by colorful square panels, a curving corner and a multi-story podium covered in dynamic signage.
Construction permits filed earlier this week show Mancini Duffy are the architects of record. The sole rendering of the development published on Maefield Development's website, the exterior will be updated to an all glass facade. The West 47th Street elevation will feature a textural grid-like skin, while the Broadway face will provide a new row of south- and west-facing balconies.
In line with the current Times Square signage trends, the eclectic hodgepodge of neon and illuminated canvas spectaculars will be replaced by an expansive curving LED screen indistinct from the screen planned directly across the street at 7 Times Square. That development by the Witkoff Group will yield a Marriott Edition Hotel and is expected to open in 2018.
With Times Square retail rents surging over the past decade, the building's first 10 floors and below ground levels will largely be dedicated to retail, entertainment and the theater spaces. The tenth floor will host a restaurant and two outdoor terraces that will accommodate more than 200 patrons. The main hotel lobby will sit on the eleventh floor and the hotel rooms rise to the 45th floor. Hotel amenities will include a fitness center and an expresso bar.
A new mechanical floor will be constructed at the 46th level, likely containing integral building systems removed the buildings lower floors to make way for the new retail. Thus, the overall building height will grow to 533 feet from 483 feet.
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