Construction kicks off at new Gem Hotel

Gemini Real Estate Advisors has broken ground on its future flagship Gem Hotel Union Square, the $14 million, 113-room hotel slated for completion in 2012 at 52 West 13th Street, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 18-story property will be the fourth and largest of the company’s New York City hotel chain, which it markets as “affordable luxury boutique,” and the first that it has built from the ground up. The new structure will have a red brick and limestone façade with iron Juliet balconies, created to blend in with its Greenwich Village surroundings at a time when boutique hotel building is booming in the city and nationwide. While room rates haven’t been set, other Gem properties charge an average of $250 per night. [WSJ]