Hotel kingpin Sam Chang has bought up a big bag of pricey air rights from his neighbors down at Washington and Rector. On that corner at 99 Washington Street, Mr. McSam plans to put up skinny new hotel, supposedly in the style of classic downtown skyscrapers. (It's also a stone's throw from the W at 123 Washington that's going to sex up FiDi big time.) Chang's McSam gang will join with their usual partner in construction, architect Gene Kaufman, to give birth to something they're calling Radisson Financial.
Here's Kaufman's take on the situation:
In the downtown financial district we have a site with some existing small historic rowhouses we are preserving. We are building two separate towers that have the vertical proportions of the classic skyscrapers to give this area its signature identity ...
That second tower is yet another McSam-Kaufman concoction set to rise at 50 Trinity Place. Although the two hotels are strikingly similar, please try not to confuse the "separate towers." For this one on Washington, the valuable air rights came from the little terracotta-covered building next door at number 103 Washington, home to Moran's bar. Others were transferred from the Greenwich Hospitality gang which runs the Pussycat Lounge on a parcel to the northeast at 96 Greenwich Street. Still more development rights were snatched up from two little sites just to the east at 94 and 94A Greenwich. All four of those low-rise properties are on the Calendar for Landmarks protection. Their preservation will allow the new McSam to rise alone, climbing tall without any immediate neighbors to get in the way of the guests' windows in that 325-room hotel tower. Which means that folks will be able to see this one from all angles. Time to step it up, Gene. The girls at the Pussycat will be watching.
· Projects > Commercial > 99 Washington [Gene Kaufman, Architect website]
· More McSamming Down at 50 Trinity Place [Curbed]
· Strippers Saved! [Curbed]
· Property Browse by Boro/Block/Lot - Block 53 [NYC DOB]For more stories from Curbed, go to curbed.com.
