2 MORE TOP INNS GOING RESIDENTIAL


By BRADEN KEIL
January 17, 2006

The Mark and Swissotel's The Drake are the latest in a string of New York hotels going residential.

The notable inns will close to make room for apartments — following on the heels of The Plaza, St. Regis, Mayflower and Stanhope.

The owners of The Drake Swissotel, New York, at 440 Park Ave. at 56th Street, are accepting bids on the property for condos.

Offers are now running in the mid-$400 million range, The Post has learned.

"The Drake will be demolished for a condo or mixed-use building of close to 70 floors," said a source familiar with the proceedings.

"It's a big site, and they've bought a bunch of development [air] rights on 57th Street."

Eastdil Realty is handling the offering for the Host Marriott, the owner of the hotel's building.

Recently, the Mandarin Oriental International Ltd. agreed to sell its full leasehold at The Mark hotel, on East 77th Street between Madison and Fifth avenues, for $150 million for cooperative apartments.

The 176-room facility is bringing in about $850,000 a room. "That's just too good a price to pass up," said one broker.

The buyers are a group controlled by New York developers Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias. The Mark was bought by the Mandarin Group in 2000 as part of a $142.5 million acquisition.


Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc.

Here are photos of both hotels mention on the above story... Only the Drake will be demolished though.


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_01_hotelsgocondo.jpg

It's a shame they will demolish a beautiful building like this. Why don't they build it somewhere else...?

I prefer the Drake to stay, and the Mark to go, but they're not that special to me as to make it that big of a deal.
And the prospects of a new 70 story tower is good news

The Drake should stay, it look so classy and refined.

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1137783985_drake.gif


Drake Hotel on Park Avenue to be converted or redeveloped


20-JAN-06

Eastdil Realty has been retained by Host Marriott to sell the handsome, Swissôtel Drake Hotel at 440 Park Avenue.

The 495-room hotel was built in 1927 and designed by Emery Roth.

Various press reports indicated it may be sold for conversion to condominium apartments and one report by Brandon Keil in the January 17, 2006 edition of The New York Post, quoted a “source familiar with the proceedings” as stating that “The Drake will be demolished for a condo or mixed-use building of close to 70 floors.”

A mid-block addition to the hotel, which is on the northwest corner at 56th Street was erected in the 1960s.

It shares the Park Avenue blockfront with the handsome black office tower with arched windows at 450 Park Avenue. A spokesman at the hotel had “no comment” when asked about the reports and calls by CityRealty.com about the sale to executives at Eastdil Realty were not returned.

Mr. Keil’s article said that the sale also involves air rights from some properties on 57th Street between Madison and Park Avenues.

If the site were to be demolished, it is conceivable that a new tower utilizing air rights might become the tallest building on Park Avenue north of the MetLife Building at 45th Street.

Another very tall mixed-use tower has been designed by Sir Norman Foster for Aby Rosen nearby at 610 Lexington Avenue on the southwest corner at 53rd Street behind the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue.

The Drake has a polished red-granite one-story base beneath two limestone stories. Fauchon is the retail tenant on Park Avenue. The 21-story, beige-brick building and three setbacks and handsome three-story columns supporting large broken pediments on its avenue frontage at the top of its base and attractive façade decorations at its top. It has a large entrance marquee on the side street with sidewalk landscaping and a large lobby. In the early 1960’s, a nightclub and discotheque at the hotel, known as Shepheard’s, handsomely outfitted with Egyptian-style décor, became the city’s first major public disco.

In their brilliant book, “New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars,” (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1987), Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Martin and Thomas Mellins noted that “the apartment hotels of the 1920s fell into three notable categories: those that really did mix transient and resident tenants, and which were usually quite luxurious; those comparable in character to the era’s typical side street apartment houses that catered to a sophisticated and more or less permanent tenantry, usually single people and childless couples, many of whom were actively pursuing business careers; and those aimed at the many young, unmarried white–collar workers who were moving into the city to pursue business and professional careers, and which offered minimal quality of accommodation. In the first category, the Park Lane, the Barclay, and the Drake on Park Avenue and the Dorset and the Lombardy in the west and east fifties were among the most elegant….Emery Roth made a specialty of apartment hotels. The 1927 Drake at 440 Park Avenue…was in the superluxury category, with suites as large as twenty-eight rooms, large enough to constitute what Good Furniture described as ‘a whole self-contained city house.’”

The hotel is not an official city landmark.

Recently hotels in prime locations have begun to be converted, in whole or in part, to condominium apartments. The Stanhope on Fifth Avenue and 81st Street and the Mark on East 77th Street and Madison Avenue, for example, are being fully converted, while the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue at Central Park South and the St. Regis Hotel at 2 West 55th Street are being partially converted.


Copyright © 1994-2006 CITY REALTY

It's great news that The Drake might not be demolished after all.

yeah, i would love for the hotel to stay. but i don't get it. the drake looks so narrow since it shares its part of the plot with that black tower. how can they fit a 70-story building on so narrow a plot, or does the hotel wrap around the black tower?

btw, that black tower's one of the coolest international style skyscrapers ive ever seen in nyc with its cool arched windows, although it isn't that tall.

well I guess the tower will be thin, probably similar to the Highcliff in Hong Kong.
I'm still trying to locate the Drake in my mind, I can't quite pinpoint its exact location as to the eventual future skyline, however I think I remember seeing a Fauchon boutique somewhere on Park, I guess that's the one.
In any case, as Krull boldened it:
might become the tallest building on Park Avenue north of the MetLife Building at 45th Street.
Taller than Bloomie and the rest on the east side? Or just the for the Park ave towers?

yeah, i would love for the hotel to stay. but i don't get it. the drake looks so narrow since it shares its part of the plot with that black tower. how can they fit a 70-story building on so narrow a plot, or does the hotel wrap around the black tower?

btw, that black tower's one of the coolest international style skyscrapers ive ever seen in nyc with its cool arched windows, although it isn't that tall.

As noted in the article, an annex to The Drake was built in the 1960's, and it's located next to the old building in the middle of the block. If anything, they could tear down the 1960's building and keep the old one, and integrate the 1920's tower with a new mid-block one.

GOODBYE TO DRAKE


http://specialsections.nypost.com/news/nypost/nyphome/20060128/img/a_2_p37.jpg


By BRADEN KEIL
January 28, 2006

ONE of the choicest parcels of developable real estate on Park Avenue is about to change hands.

Sources tell us the Drake Swissotel at 56th and Park has just gone to contract for a high bid of approximately $440 million.

The buyer of the property, which includes air rights for a structure of nearly 70 floors, is developer Harry Macklowe, whose Macklowe Organization has built and/or owns numerous residential and commercial buildings.

According to insiders, the 80-year-old building will be torn down to make room for a luxury condominium complex, with the possibility of commercial and retail space on the lower floors.

The 21-story tower, built in 1926 as a residential hotel, is presently configured with 495 rooms and suites. It last underwent major renovations in 1991.

Macklowe, whose other properties include the General Motors Building, for which he paid a then-record $1.4 billion in 2003, is probably best known as Martha Stewart's next-door neighbor in East Hampton.

It was there where Stewart and Macklowe made headlines battling over property lines and other minor details - which culminated in the domestic diva being accused of driving her SUV into Macklowe's gardener after heated words were exchanged.


Copyright 2006 The New York Post

Once again NYC looses another known building. :no:

man, that's gonna suck...and that cool black box next door's gonna get dwarfed now! grr...

WHY ??? THEY DESTROY THIS BUILDING THAT IS CRAZY!!!!

Any renderings?

Demolishing such buildings will make NYC to lose its unique character :ohno:

this building should be protected by law why in us is no law for such a thing

if they're just demolishing the drake so the tower can get a park ave address, that'd be a dumb thing to do. they can just annex the drake to the new tower and make it one building, then it can use the drake's address.

Doesn't the developer lose a lot of money buying the property just to tear it down?

Yes, I think so too! It's a very stupid idea!

Is it already confirmed??? Is it 100% they will demolish it?

NYC really needs to get a hand on this demolition situation with elegant historical buildings.

NY already has some of the most strictest laws protecting older structures. Agree with it or not, the Landmarks Commission just don't feel the Drake deserves Landmark status.

In my country a building like this would never get demolished!

Oh no,please do not demolish that building >(
The contrast between the boxy tower and this one is amazing,and this is the kind of building that makes the difference between NYC and any other skyscraper city. >(²

any news about this construction????

NYC really needs to get a hand on this demolition situation with elegant historical buildings.

get outta the way of progress, people here in raleigh dont want to tear down trees to put buildings up

any news about this construction????
The last time I heard, this project is still in the proposed stage.