Downtown Hotel - 377 Greenwich Street

[RandySavage]

The Robert DeNiro-backed hotel project at 377 Greenwich St (and N. Moore) is walled off and excavation may have already begun. Here is a rendering and article:

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/20...beca_hotel.php

[Edward]

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_04/cb1sees.html

C.B. 1 sees plans for new Tribeca hotel

By Elizabeth O’Brien

A new hotel is slated for construction at the corner of Greenwich and N. Moore Sts., on a lot now used for parking.

Representatives from the Downtown Hotel, L.L.C. presented their plans last Monday night at a meeting of the Landmarks Committee of C.B. 1. Using visual aids that included a 4’ by 3’ stone and brick wall, the project’s architects and landmarks consultant showed how the six-story hotel would harmonize with the Tribeca landscape.

Deeply recessed windows with operable wooden shutters were among the details featured in the presentation for the proposed building at 377-383 Greenwich St.

“It’s so contextual, it’s amazing,” said Bruce Ehrmann, chairperson of the landmarks committee.

The hotel’s owners were not present at the meeting. Neighborhood real estate sources say actor Robert De Niro is one of the investors in the project, which is next door to his Tribeca Grill restaurant, but representatives did not confirm this. Members of Downtown Hotel, L.L.C. did not respond to several requests for information about the hotel project.

The concept behind the 80-room hotel takes inspiration from the Chambers Hotel, a boutique hotel on W. 56th St., representatives said last Monday. Richard Born, developer of the Chambers, Mercer and Maritime hotels, said he was involved in the Tribeca project. Representatives did not answer a question about the room rates, but it is likely that the hotel will cater to an upscale clientele.

The developers hope to begin construction within the next few months. Some doubted whether a hotel would flourish in the current economic downturn.

“I hear the travel business is tanking, but they keep building hotels,” said Judy Duffy, assistant district manager for C.B. 1, in a telephone interview afterward.

Even so, Duffy said that the hotel would probably not have a negative impact on the neighborhood. Hotel use is allowed under the area’s zoning laws.

The main hotel entrance would be on Greenwich St., with the service entrance on N. Moore. There would be a restaurant on the lower level, representatives said.

Members of C.B. 1’s landmarks committee decided against passing a resolution in support of the hotel, instead asking the presenters to return next month with diagrams showing how the hotel would fit into the streetscape.

Presenters are not required to come before the committee again — the community board acts solely in an advisory capacity — but committee members said that the project might fare better before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission if it had the strong support of C.B. 1. The hotel site is part of the Tribeca West Historic District, so the city’s landmarks commission must okay the design.

One architect indicated afterwards that they would likely return before the committee. “We want to have a working relationship with the community board—it’s in everyone’s best interest,” said Matt Markowitz, the architect overseeing construction.

Bill Higgins, the project’s landmarks consultant, said that Downtown Hotel, L.L.C. plans to go before the Landmarks Preservation Commission later this month.

[Edward]

Construction of Downtown Hotel. 16 July 2005.

[Luca]

has this place opened yet? The tribeca and Soho grand are lookin' a bit pricey from where I'm standing...

[antinimby]

I don't think so. Recent pics show it's still u/c but it's close to completion. Maybe a summer or fall grand opening?
Pricey can be used to described most NY hotels.
There is also the Hotel Gansevoort if you're interested in that part of town.

[Luca]

what's it like? meatpacking district's a bit out of the way, isn't it?

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by Luca

what's it like? meatpacking district's a bit out of the way, isn't it?

A bit of a crosstown walk from the subway. Really nice when you get there. If you're there at 6 a.m. you'll see blood on the sidewalk and carcasses on meathooks. Go at 5:30 p.m. and you'll think you're in Paris, with the boutiques, the cobbles, the complex intersections and the glitzy watering holes. My favorite for people watching: the outdoor seating at Markt. You can watch them on the outside or connect at the bar.

There's also some slick modern architecture in among the decrepit meat-packing joints.

No wonder folks like it; it's the city the way it ought to be.

[antinimby]

Downtown Hotel on Greenwich Street in TriBeCa nearing completion




31-MAY-06

The newest building on Greenwich Street in TriBeCa looks like one of its oldest.
It is the 8-story Downtown Hotel at 377 Greenwich Street on the southeast corner at North Moore Street.

The brown-brick building is nearing completion and is distinguished by its stunning curved, multi-paned corner windows, its huge skylights at its southern and eastern corners, and its very fine masonry detailing.

The hotel has been designed by Matt Markowitz Architects P.C., and Ed Kopel Architects P.C.

It occupies the former site of a parking lot across from the extremely attractive Independence Plaza North red-brick and striated concrete complex of three towers that was erected in 1975 and designed by Oppenheimer, Brady & Vogelstein and John Pruyn.

The hotel will have about 100 rooms and an arcaded courtyard as well as a 300-seat restaurant. Its lobby will also be connected to the adjacent TriBeCa Grill.

Copyright © 1994-2006 CITY REALTY.COM INC.

[milleniumcab]

I am surprised they did not go higher.. was it the zoning?

[lofter1]

Tribeca West Historic District -- height limitations, but variances are available to some degree.

There is a bit more height (set back) that can't be seen in this photo.

The detailing on this building is terrific.

[kurokevin]

Yes, everytime I jog pass this building I'm surprised to see that it hasn't been there for over a 100 years. This is a brick buidling done to perfection. If only the rest of the developers could invest the little extra time and money to make their developments looks so spectacular

[antinimby]

This project was heavily subsidized with Liberty Bonds.

[lofter1]

Not everyone is a fan ...

'Contextual' Tribeca hotel looks like an overbaked cookie

Tribeca_Trib
Letters to the Editor
July 2006

To the Editor:

Along with idling limos, another kind of pollution continues to inflict Tribeca: “contextual” architecture. The latest example is the hotel nearing completion at North Moore and Greenwich Streets, designed by Matt S. Markowitz Architect and SK Architecture. Though part-owned by the developer Robert De Niro, the project received $45 million in Liberty Bonds. Why is a De Niro luxury hotel getting such subsidies? Where’s our affordable housing?

For a long time the building was wrapped à la Christo and I waited with curiosity for the unveiling. My first thought on seeing the naked edifice was, “It’s edible!” The texture and color is that of an overbaked cookie. I imagined a crowd of old Tribeca dwellers—artists who have been ousted from their lofts—encircling the hotel and munching on it until it was reduced to a pile of crumbs. The brick cladding, aside from the more carefully worked neo-Tudor sections, is so crudely laid that in places the mortar is half as wide as the bricks. Parts of the walls are smudgy, and there are even pieces of brick missing. Pink corking fills some of the gaps. It’s “meant to look old,” but the brick walls of old Tribeca buildings are laid with perfect uniformity, their surfaces flat. Of course, unlike its old neighbors, the hotel building isn’t actually constructed of bricks; the bricks are slapped onto the steel and concrete shell, and that’s one of the basic absurdities of Tribeca “contextual.”

The rough bricklaying looks odd next to the industrial, modern windows, especially the penthouse atrium window tucked at the south end, and the curved curtain of windows on the street corner that looks like plastic, not glass. The lumpy, curved corner makes the building a cousin to the 1990s Tribeca Grand Hotel, not a relative of Tribeca’s typically angular geometry. As for mitigating factors, as far as I know the hotel isn’t green, as its surface rusticity might suggest—no solar cells or geothermal heat. Just another luxury development, partly subsidized by the taxpayer.

Contrary to the historic district’s mandate, few of the new Tribeca buildings look well built, much less well finished. Go make a close inspection. Most of these creations stand out as clumsy interlopers because their concept is a fakery, and has nothing to do with architecture as an art. Nothing to do with function, either. The North Moore hotel evokes anything but Tribeca, parts of an Edward Luytens’ country house perhaps, minus the quality. A contemporary building on Hudson Street near Franklin fits better with the surrounding buildings. The “contextual” has been discredited in other countries such as Britain where it’s now rightly seen as a disaster for architecture.

Maybe what we need is a City Architect, as in Barcelona and now London, someone who can watch over the quality of new architecture in New York. That would be the end of the anti-architecture clique whose nonsensical interpretation of Tribeca’s history results in follies like the North Moore hotel.

Carole Ashle

[kz1000ps]

Originally Posted by cityrealty

It occupies the former site of a parking lot across from the extremely attractive Independence Plaza North red-brick and striated concrete complex of three towers that was erected in 1975 and designed by Oppenheimer, Brady & Vogelstein and John Pruyn.

Since when does Cityrealty do sarcasm? Surely they can't be serious.

[pianoman11686]

I think the better question is: when haven't they used either "attractive" or "handsome" to describe an existing building across the street from a new development?