Hotel Company Backs Out of Planfor NYPL's Donnell Library Site
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 03/03/2009
- Library, hotel company tight-lipped
- Transcript indicates company may forego deposit
- Deal was made when real-estate market was hot
In November 2007, when the real estate market was hot, the New York Public Library (NYPL) agreed to sell the land and building of the Donnell Library, located at 24 West 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, to a company to build an 11-story hotel that was to include space for a significantly smaller library, expected to open in 2012.
While the building has been gutted (photos) and the library's valuable functions dispersed (to the dismay of many New Yorkers), that $59 million deal, with Orient-Express Hotels, has now fallen through, a casualty of the plunging market. NYPL issued LJ a statement this morning: "Orient-Express Hotels, Ltd. recently advised us that the company currently is not in a position to complete the purchase of the Donnell Library building. We are now evaluating various alternatives to ensure that Orient Express honors its commitment to the Library."
The company told the New York Times, which published a brief item today: "The global financial crisis and the lack of availability of credit for construction and real estate development means that progress cannot be made on the project at the present time.” (The Times sometimes doesn't look too closely at NYPL.)
Deferral of plans or will library move back?
The transcript of a February 26 conference call with investment analysts provides some more insight into the options available.
Orient-Express CEO Paul White was asked, "[O]n the New York project. Is there any -- you talked about kind of working with them to differ that, is there any hard timeframe for that or are there deadlines, and is there any -- I guess recourse you decide not to go forward with what you've already committed."
White responded, "Yeah, I mean just we -- clearly I'm not going to -- I'm not going to put another $43 million into a project in this environment. I think the -- that the big positive here is that the members of the New York public library board that we deal with are actually big names in New York real estate development, so they fully understand what is going on."
"The outcome will be, I think, one is -- from one extreme that we may well get a very soft deferral for a couple of years," he said. "On the other hand the library may decide to return to their premises and we might have to forego our deposit. At the moment, it's very much under discussion and the tone of the discussion is such that I feel that this is going to -- this will have a positive outcome both for us and for the library."
Library functions moved
Children’s materials from Donnell, both the historic and reference collections and circulating items, have been moved to the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street starting in the fall.
A 13,000 square foot temporary site, the Grand Central Branch, located at 135 East 46th Street, is expected to open this spring. It will provide access to circulating popular materials, including fiction and nonfiction and video and audio recordings, as well as have a large mezzanine for the Teen Central space.
Donnell occupied 84,000 square feet over five floors, half of which is public space. The new library was to be 28,000 square feet on three floors, of which 19,000 square feet was to be public
.
