June 10, 2008
PLANS just filed with the Buildings Dept. for two hotel projects along Eighth Avenue in the West 40s have added momentum to the city's most frenzied development corridor.
On the west side of Eighth between 43rd and 44th streets, a Tishman Realty Corp.-led partnership just filed plans with the city for a 22-story hotel that will stretch 100 feet along the block's north side and a whopping 275 feet along West 44th.
The site is now a giant crater that's still being excavated. Sources say Tishman has lined up InterContinental Hotels Group to manage the new inn, although it isn't yet known under which brand. Tishman reps did not return calls.
Meanwhile, on the West Side between 46th and 47th Streets - across from SJP Properties' new luxury apartment tower known as The Platinum - Irish-owned TriBeach Holdings has filed plans for a 38-story apartment and hotel tower. Demolition is underway.
The Eighth Avenue whirlwind is breathtaking. On the East Side between 41st and 42nd streets, SJP's 40-story 11 Times Square is rising ahead of schedule, with steel having reached the eighth floor and the concrete core up to 18; curtain wall glass will begin to appear next month.
SJP chief Steven J. Pozycki expects to top the tower off by the end of the year and to complete the entire project by the end of 2009. He's confident of landing tenants and said, "There's a lot of activity right now."
Pozycki expressed relief that his building won't have exterior horizontal rods like those on the New York Times tower next door, where last week two people were arrested after having scaled the building. SJP has its marketing office for 11 Times Square in the building.
"It would scare the hell out of me to have guys climbing a ladder outside," he joked.
Between West 45th and 46th streets on the East Side, a Related Cos./Boston Properties partnership is inching closer to launching a 900,000 square-foot office tower. Property purchases the developers need are in contract but not yet signed.
The current assemblage is in the odd shape of a Z - or, as a source familiar with the plans put it, "a rectangle with legs."
That's because Related and Boston haven't yet struck a deal to buy a few small buildings at the block's south end.
