Another NY Luxury Hotel May Go Condo

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Another NY Luxury Hotel May Go Condo

Thursday, February 09, 2006

By Jillian S. Ambroz, Commercial Real Estate Direct Senior Writer Another luxury Manhattan hotel may be in play as a residential condominium conversion. There's talk that the Hotel Plaza Athenee New York at East 64th and Madison Avenue is quietly being shown to prospective investors. The 17-story property is owned by Thai company TCC Property Management Co. Ltd., which operates under the umbrella of Imperial Hotels Group. The 150-room hotel could fetch more than $850,000/room, or upwards of $125 million, according to local sources. The property's plum location makes it an excellent residential conversion candidate and would enable it to command top dollar. If the hotel does go condo, it would follow in the footsteps of several other luxury Manhattan properties slated for full or partial residential conversions. Macklowe Properties has agreed to acquire the 495-room Swissotel The Drake at Park Avenue between 56th and 57th streets. Host Marriott Corp. is selling it for $440 million, or close to $890,000/room. About 15 blocks north of the Athenee, developers Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias recently paid about $852,000/key or $150 million for The Mark hotel. The property at East 77th Street and Madison Avenue is expected to be converted to condos. And of course, jump-starting the trend was Elad Properties' much talked-about partial conversion of The Plaza Hotel, which is scheduled to reopen early next year with about 152 condos out of 282 rooms. In fact, so many luxury hotel rooms in New York are coming offline that it is starting to drain supply. And no luxury projects are in the pipeline for Manhattan at the moment.