Hotels

The Architect’s Newspaper reports that there was a design competition for a proposed hotel next to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank and the vision above was picked as the winner. According to the story, the Oppenheim Architecture+Design-drafted concept for the 440-foot-tall tower would be called “Williamsburghotel” and consist of “three 16-foot deep vertical slabs.” How theoretical is the project? Unclear. It would rise on the land next to the bank, which developer Juan Figueroa is transforming into a gallery and event space. Architect Chad Oppenheim, for one, is talking about it like it’s a sure thing: “We did not want the hotel’s form to be in constant battle with the adjacent historic bank. We tried to accomplish more with less, opting for a timeless solution that delivers grace, and drama through powerful manipulations of scale, proportion, and materiality. …I am incredibly excited to do our first project in New York, and especially in Brooklyn.” We’ll see! In the meantime, click through for a couple more renderings.
Meet Williamsburgh Savings Bank’s Lofty New Neighbor [Architect's Newspaper]
(more…)

Speaking at the quarterly meeting of the Brooklyn Real Estate Round Table at the Brooklyn Historical Society a few minutes ago, Two Trees’ Jed Walentas served up a number of details about the Dumbo-based company’s first foray into North Brooklyn. Fun stuff first: The hotly-anticipated hotel at the corner of North 11th Street and Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg will probably be called The Wythe (though that name is “not 100% set”). The glass-additioned conversion of a former industrial building will have a restaurant on the ground floor as well as a 6th-floor roofdeck bar and restaurant and assorted private event spaces; all the food will be overseen by Andrew Tarlow of Diner, Marlow and Roman’s fame (a can’t-miss proposition in our mind). There will also be a 60-person screening room in the basement. The hotel will open no later than May 1, with the restaurant probably coming out of the gates a few weeks earlier. Acknowledging that the whole project was a bit of a lark and not without risk, Walentas projected average room rates at the beginning at around $200 a night. For a bunch of recent photos of the project, click here.