Posted Nov 19, 2019, 5:11 AM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,912
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I stayed at this hotel last year (not my choice) and it was even more horrible than I thought it would be. As long as it is still open, it's good that at least some work will be done on it.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/18/hotel-...f-guest-rooms/
Hotel Pennsylvania undergoing full redesign of guest rooms
By Steve Cuozzo
November 18, 2019
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The forever-doomed, but still-standing Hotel Pennsylvania is undergoing a top-to-bottom redesign of its guest rooms to keep it competitive in an AirBNB-challenged hotel market.
Whoa, you say — isn’t owner Vornado planning to knock the old relic down to make room for a spectacular office skyscraper?
Yes, for sure — it’s just a matter of when. But until the day comes, the Pennsylvania needs to remain viable as a huge, budget-priced inn.
The city’s only hotel with working pay telephones in the lobby isn’t getting a full-on Cinderella treatment. But faded guest rooms by the hundreds are getting a “lighter, contemporary palette of white and pale beige, warmed by wood furnishings with sleek modern lines,” as well as new carpeting and “rejuvenated” bathrooms with original subway-style tiles, its reps said.
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We reported last week that publicly traded Vornado wasn’t ready yet to demolish the property, which it’s owned for 20 years. Company president Michael Franco told analysts, “The time is not here yet.”
When we referred to the Pennsylvania as “gloomy,” its publicists informed us that a “metamorphosis” was taking place behind the weathered brick facade.
It needed spiffing up to compete. Cushman & Wakefield hotel specialist Tom McConnell had no data specifically for the Pennsylvania. But, citing industry tracker Smith Travel Resources (STR), he said occupancy citywide was down by 1.2 percentage points over last year. Average room rates were down 2.3 percent and RevPAR — the industry benchmark of revenue per available room — was off 3.6 percent.
The dips were mainly due to more rooms on the market, a figure that’s 40 percent higher than just 10 years ago, he said.
The budget-priced Pennsylvania is also vulnerable to AirBNB. Its posted rates are mostly under $200 and nightly rates are quoted under $100 on the hotel’s Web site, including in the renovated “Penn Plaza” category.
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Vornado CEO Steven Roth long encouraged the idea that the property wasn’t long for the world by showing prospective office tenants several different images of what a new tower would look like — one as recently as last summer.
But for now, the Pennsylvania remains the city’s fourth-largest hotel with 1.4 million square feet, 55,000-square-foot floor plates and 1,700 guest rooms.
Few New Yorkers know much about it. “It’s always kind of had identity issues,” McConnell deadpanned.
So we couldn’t resist when the hotel’s publicists invited us to check it out. While the renovated rooms are a big improvement over those yet to be redesigned, the hotel remains an eerie time warp — especially its sprawling lobby.
Vornado nicely restored it after former owner Abe Hirschfeld covered the marble lobby floor with a miserable carpet. “We were surprised to find what was under it,” Vornado Hotels vice-president Eugene Nicotra told us.
But it has no cafes or stores other than a few small shops at the fringes. The last restaurant, the Statler Grill, closed last year. Nicotra said prospective retail and food tenants have looked at various lobby locations and he hoped a deal would be struck.
Vestiges of the past are everywhere. There is a ghost sign for a vanished coffee shop and a 12th-floor “pantry” display of early 20th-century laundry devices. Some rooms have original “valet doors” installed in 1919 through which guests could leave clothes to be cleaned.
Nostalgists might want to see them now while they still can.
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