December 22, 2006

Hotel 373 and Mela maybe first 2007 hotel openings

Hotel 373 Fifth Avenue, located in Midtown at 35th Street, is scheduled to open December 29 with rooms from $239. But if it misses its opening date, it wouldn't be the first hotel rush-dialing to put its booked guests elsewhere this year -- just the last.

The 230-room Hotel Mela, for example, has been doing that with guests at least since October. The hotel, located just off Times Square on 44th Street, is now accepting reservations for January 1 with room rates from $249. (Update: The target date's now January 8.)

But after that, the 2007 opening dates get even fuzzier.

The 45-room Duane Street Hotel in Tribeca, which had hoped to be accepting reservations by now, isn't. The hotel has been unable to secure a liquor license but hopes to open by March, according to Downtown Express.

In Brooklyn, the 93-room Smith Hotel is still under construction at the corner of Smith and Atlantic, but is shooting for an April opening, according to NYC & Co., the city's official tourism board. Not too far away, an unnamed boutique hotel is under construction on 4th Avenue.

Robert DeNiro's somewhat mysterious 90-room Downtown Hotel is scheduled to open in Tribeca sometime in 2007 at Greenwich Street and No. Moore.

The Plaza, of course, is scheduled to reopen in time to celebrate its centennial on October 1.

Other high profile properties shooting for 2007 openings include Andre Balazs' 337-room The Standard at the High Line, Jason Pomeranc's Allen Street Hotel and Vikram Chatwal's conversion of the Lamb's Club theater on 44th Street into a 72-room hotel.

And in the low-profile category, blogger Gowanus Lounge reveals that the former Empty Vessel Project, actually a WWII boat sitting in the still-toxic Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, may convert into "a sort of hobo hostel for traveller kids in search of a warm hammock."

Farther down the line, there's an aloft Hotel for downtown Brooklyn slated for 2008, a mid-priced extended-stay Candlewood Suites project on 39th and 8th Avenue for 2008, 161 units of Hilton 57th Street timeshares for 2009, a 45-story Trump SoHo condo/hotel in the works for 2009, and eventually an Andre Balazs' condo/lodge William Beaver House for downtown Manhattan, an 11-story Crosby Street hotel project.

Also, the shuttered Empire Hotel across the street from Lincoln Center is no longer destined for condos. Instead, it will be turned into a 440-room upscale hotel, according to Crains.

Other recent New York City hotel news of note:

The very deluxe 248-room Mandarin Oriental Hotel at the Time Warner Center is being sold to Istithmar, an investment holding company owned by the government of Dubai, according to Reuters. For $340 million, Istithmar gets a 73 percent stake in the hotel, which will still be owned in part by Mandarin Oriental International Ltd. and Apollo Real Estate. Earlier this year, Istithmar bought the W hotel on Union Square and the old Knickerbocker Hotel on Times Square with the intent of turning it back into a hotel.

The conversion of the Paramount Hotel into condos and the Hard Rock Hotel on Times Square has been pushed back to fall 2007. The sale of the whole Hard Rock chain, excluding the ca sino in Las vegas, to the Seminole tribe was celebrated earlier this month atop the Hard Rock marquee on Times Square.

Hotel Chelsea, which long ago tore up the Sid & Nancy room, is now painting over its colorful doors with a lifeless black.

And finally, Manhattan-based Loews hotels announced it will ban all trans-fats from its restaurants by June 1. New York City's trans-fat ban will be phased in starting this summer.

December 22, 2006 11:28 AM in Hotelology

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