Posted Mar 17, 2011, 9:16 AM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,890
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http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/2011...ict-hotel.html
Sam Chang Resurrecting Plans for 44-Story Hotel in Financial District
Gene Kaufman Architects
A rendering first released in 2008 of the 44-story hotel planned for a vacant lot at 99 Washington Street.
By Matt Dunning
Mar. 11
Quote:
Hotel magnate Sam Chang is finally getting started on a sky-scraping hotel project, four blocks south of the World Trade Center site, that he had hoped to complete more than a year-and-a-half ago.
Chang first revealed plans to build a 44-story hotel at 99 Washington Street in January 2008, and expected to open the 350-room hotel by the summer of 2009. This week the developer’s company, McSam Hotel Group, told staff at Community Board 1 that construction on the hotel was finally “about to commence,” according to emails between the developer’s attorney and the board office.
The company offered to re-introduce the project, slated to be a Holiday Inn, to the board’s Financial District committee at its March 2 meeting.
“They pretty much came out of the blue saying they were getting back to work and that they wanted an opportunity to tell us about it,” said Noah Pfefferblit, CB1’s District Manager.
According to emails, the team presenting the project next month will include Basil Boyce, an architect for the McSam Hotel Group and Malek Nait Doud, an architect for the firm of Gene Kaufman Architects, a frequent partner in Cheng projects.
Greg Marshall, of Cava Construction and Patrick Jones, an attorney for the McSam group are also scheduled to appear at the meeting.
Requests for comment from the McSam group were not immediately returned.
UPDATE (Feb. 25):
In an interview with the trib, Kaufman said the building's revised design was "similar" to his original plans, but that new city building codes had prompted some significant changes.
"We changed materials, and there have been a variety of changes to how the building is organized internally," Kaufman said. "We've gone with a lighter palate of masory and brick with some stone on the base, and there some adjustments that had to be made for some legal and code reasons."
A post on the Kaufman firm’s website lists the project’s price tag at $50 million.
Chang paid $17 million for the lot and nine-story parking garage at 99 Washington Street in 2005 and tore down the garage two years later. In June 2008, Chang bought $3 million worth of air rights from the owners of the 200-year-old Syrian church-turned-steakhouse Moran’s, located at 103 Washington next door to Chang's property.
Since then, the 4,700-square-foot lot has sat empty, along with a second lot a block away at 50 Trinity Place, where Chang had planned to build another, 35-story hotel.
Chang's other recent projects in Lower Manhattan includet a Sheraton at 370 Canal Street and a Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street.
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Here's the other that was supposed to rise at 50 Trinity:
curbed.com
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