The Grand Hyatt is Hyatt’s biggest property in New York City. While it’s not the most exciting property they have in the city, it’s typically among the most reasonably priced, and I’ve always found the Grand Club to be great. So I’ve stayed there a fair number of times, and have always had pleasant stays.
Well, it has just been announced that the Grand Hyatt New York will soon be torn down.
What’s going on? The hotel will be purchased by TF Cornerstone, which plans to tear down the hotel and replace it with a two million square foot tower that will include office and retail space, as well as a new, but much smaller, Grand Hyatt.
The plan is that the current ~1,300 room hotel will instead have ~500 rooms. We’ll also see the amount of meeting space reduced from 60,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet.
The current hotel will remain open until at least the end of 2020, and at that point it will likely be torn down, and I imagine it will be a few years before it reopens.
The reason for this change is that in 2017 rezoning of the Midtown East area meant that taller buildings could be built, so clearly developers saw some potential with the land that the Grand Hyatt is on, as it’s right by Grand Central.
Hyatt is actually leasing the hotel for 100 years (through 2077), so the developers will need to transfer the lease before any work can be performed.
Coincidentally this was also Donald Trump’s first big real estate deal in New York. This was initially developed by Trump and Hyatt in the late 1970s, before Trump sold his stake in the project in the 1990s.
As much as Hyatt’s footprint in NYC has grown massively, it’s unfortunate to see them lose this many rooms. On the plus side, I look forward to seeing what the redesigned Grand Hyatt looks like. Sadly it’ll probably be at least five years until it opens.
Are you sad to see the current Grand Hyatt NYC close?
(Tip of the hat to @2GaysAndAPuppy)
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