Extell’s 45th Street hotel to get built despite sale of site: Barnett

Extell President Gary Barnett and a rendering of the hotel from 2007

Extell Development’s 50-story hotel project at 131-139 West 45th Street will go ahead despite the company having sold off 11 commercial property lots in Midtown for approximately $125.16 million, including the hotel site, Extell President Gary Barnett told The Real Deal.

According to documents filed with the city on Monday, the buyer in the bulk property sale, which includes lots on 45th and 46th streets, is HHC TS REIT LLC. Barnett confirmed that the properties had been sold, but said that the transaction was primarily a strategy to get an equity partner involved with the hotel project. He would not confirm the identity of the buyer.

The 50-story condominium and hotel project will proceed, he said. The building, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, is slated to have 242 hotel rooms and 171 hotel-condos, according to the original plans presented to a community board in 2007.

Extell bought up scads of Theater District transferable air rights — 9,500 from the St. James Theater at 222 West 45th Street and 54,820 square feet from the Broadhurst Theater at 235 West 44th Street — for the project in the mid-2000s. All told, the site can support a building of 270,000 square feet.