I have mixed feelings about this. These are nice, old buildings. It will be a shame If a 700’ glass box rises here.
What I find truly perplexing is that Extell appears to be doing nothing with its sites on 7th and 54th and on Broadway and 54th.
However, the site in this area that piques my interest the most is the Qataris’ Manhattan Hotel. That is an execrable and disgusting building and an utter waste of a very prime site.
What does the Manhattan Hotel have to do with this project? That would be the topic to 790 Seventh Ave.
Read my post.
You’re right… I say no more
I really like these buildings. I hope that whatever rises here is nice. I’m still perplexed about why Extell is letting its site across the street lie empty.
So hard to lose old memories. I used to go to that diner.
Per: NYguy
Garry Barnett’s Extell Development is planning a hotel at the site of the Wellington, a century-old building near Billionaire’s Row that provided rooms to the homeless during the DeBlasio administration.
Plans made public on Monday by the Department of Buildings suggest the developer will renovate the hotel rather than construct another towering edifice near Central Park South, like the developer’s Central Park Tower or One57 — both condominium buildings.
The proposed hotel, with 214,000 square feet of floor area across 27 stories, closely matches the existing structure and comes as the city’s permitting guidelines for new hotels has throttled supply.
The hotel will include ground-floor retail and business amenities such as a banquet room, commercial kitchen and a lecture hall. Floors 8 to 27 will be used exclusively as a hotel.
Quote:
Months after Extell agreed to buy the property’s leasehold for $94 million, fee owner Richard Born’s BD Hotels received approval from the city to renovate the building’s first 12 stories, including demolishing at least half of the building’s floor area.
The city’s permit requirement would kick in for a renovation if its floor area is increased by 20 percent or more, or if the hotel had been out of use for two consecutive years. The Wellington closed about a year into the pandemic, following a stint as a homeless shelter in 2018.
The hotel, known by travelers for its moderate prices and 600 tiny guest rooms, provided lodging to travelers in Midtown. It is unclear how many rooms the new hotel will offer.
Perhaps, nothing set in stone however, just plans. I would love to see this site developed. Thanks for providing the article
This is a NB permit, so it doesn’t appear to be a renovation. It appears to be an initial NB filing for something, though not clear yet what’s happening. It doesn’t appear to cover much of the Extell-owned assemblage.
My guess is that this is an initial filing for something bigger, which is common with large assemblages that have air rights, lot mergers and the like.
The sidewalk shed has been around the building since 2016 so nothing new is going on in regards to that, can’t speak as to why it’s still up though, but it looks like they are just washing the windows per the davits and cables. It’s still very much in use as a rental building though, just the ground floor commercial aspects are closed and have been since 2018.
Ah thanks. When the retail goes and doesn’t come back I always get a little worried. The building next to our place has probably had a shed around it for something close to 20 years. It’s insane. Talk about shady.
That definitely is a sad aspect when ground floor businesses never open up again (even new ones come) after they close. But as it involves sidewalk sheds in general, the city is still trying to start up an initiative that will impose steeper fines for those landlords and businesses that are neglecting to quickly finish the building work that requires the sheds to be installed and make contractors finish their work in a timely manner that would lessen the time that the sheds are up as landlords and business owners have just allowed the sheds to remain up because its easier for them than to have to put them up and down all the time.
The thing is is that the sheds are unsightly, even the “pretty” decorated sheds are ugly. If I recall correctly, the longest standing shed in the city has been up for 16 years, which is absurd.
I’m not kidding, I think the building next to me has that beat. And if it doesn’t it is purely based on a technicality. They may have taken it down for a week in the last 20 years, no joke. But man, brickwork, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
