A new sliver-hotel is set to rise at 160 West 56th Street, which was bought last July for $4,000,000. The tiny property, which formerly held a 4,000 square foot carriage house built in 1879, will soon give rise to a 19-story and 63-room tower, though the Department of Buildings shows a stop-work order in place. Despite the pause in construction, demolition has already been completed, and excavation has also begun – the lot is currently a muddy pit full of construction equipment, though that will soon be changing.
160 West 56th Street’s developer is the Empire Hotel Group, which – per The Wall Street Journal – already has seven other properties in New York, including their storied flagship Empire Hotel on the Upper West Side. While 56th Street has not been a traditional area for luxury hotels, the neighborhood has seen a dramatic shift in recent years, and continues to drift towards the upscale market, especially with its proximity to the booming 57th Street corridor.
Per Department of Buildings permits, the project’s architect is Axis Design Group, which has a slew of international projects in their portfolio, including a kilometer-high tower in Dubai – though whether that gets built or not remains to be seen. The firm’s New York projects are decidedly more low-key, including two hotel projects on West 39th Street; ultimately, the creativity of the project will be limited by its scope, as the lot is extremely narrow and the final product will only rise 173 feet, relegating the hotel to the depths of Midtown’s canyons. Nevertheless, the development will be a marked improvement over the carriage house, which – though historic – was extremely out-of-place for Midtown Manhattan.
Keeping historic context in mind is important, but it has to be considered both ways – antiquated structures in neighborhoods that demand new, dense buildings should not be preserved unless they are exceptional, and the carriage house was not. While the scope of 160 West 56th Street is relatively minor, it will still help satiate the Manhattan hotel market’s voracious appetite for new construction.
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