A prime West Chelsea development site could be home to a new hotel, Crain’s reported.

The 12,083-square-foot parcel, which is right now home to a seven-story, mixed-use loft building, also comes with air rights from nearby properties, James Nelson, a partner at Massey Knakal Realty Services, which has been retained exclusively to market the site, told Crain’s.

The buildings at 146-148 West 28th Street and parking lot at 140-144 West 28th Street offer 170,000 feet of buildable space, Crain’s said, and so could make the perfect site for a new hotel, as many other have sprung up in the area of late — such as the Ace Hotel and Hotel Eventi — and New York City seems to be able to absorb an inexhaustible supply of lodging.
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The owner of a third-generation auto-body business on West 29th Street between 10th and 11th avenues in Chelsea is being forced out of his premises to facilitate hipper tenants, more suitable for the home by the High Line, the New York Post reported.

Alan Brownfeld, whose grandfather started the family business in 1920, said his landlord won’t allow him to extend his lease.

“He’s terminating me and trying to get me to vacate my premises,” Brownfeld said. “They want to replace us with an art gallery or a high-rise… I’ve been here my whole life.”

The building housing Alan Brownfeld Garage was rezoned for residential and mixed use in 2005, the Post said. The auto-body shop was grandfathered in, so if the landlord wanted, Brownfeld could stay.
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Chelsea’s Antiques Garage flea market that has been operating out of a parking garage at 112 West 25th Street since 1993 will be allowed to continue for the time being, although Extell Development, the owner of the buildings, has the authority to end the agreement with only two weeks notice, DNAinfo reported. Extell bought the property in 2006 for $42.7 million, and has been pushing forward with plans to build a hotel there ever since. According to George Arzt, a spokesperson for Extell, Extell has an amicable relationship with the Antiques Garage and does not yet have any definite plans for the complex. Alan Boss, the market’s founder, is looking for a new space for the garage, such as a nearby parking building. [more]

Hotel Chelsea is ceasing accepting reservations next month in an apparent attempt by its new owner Joseph Chetrit to end the unionization of its staff, the Hotel Chelsea blog reported. While he recently negotiated a contract with the Hotel Workers Local that was good until July 2012, staff members have now been told to stop taking reservations next month. Many of the long-term hotel staff could then be laid off, the blog said. Chetrit could then contract out any remaining jobs or keep a non-union skeleton staff. He could reopen Hotel Chelsea at 222 West 23rd street as a non-union hotel in a year after the contract has expired. [more]

The grand columned Anglo-Italianate facade of Chelsea’s 10-building London Terrace Gardens apartment complex, built in 1930 and 1931, had been covered in scaffolding since 2008 while undergoing a massive restoration project, but that scaffolding is now beginning to come down. The three-year $7.7 million project, which falls in line with Landmarks Preservation Commission standards without actually having landmark status, will likely be completed by fall, according to Ellen Gribben Bornet, the general manager of the complex, which is managed by Rose Associates, the New York Times reported.

The complex features a full-size indoor pool, private health club, sun deck, and garden area. [more]

Three non-profit organizations have signed full-floor leases at 147 West 24th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, according to landlord the Moinian Group. Meanwhile, the city began a $266 million remediation project on a Staten Island landfill today, and a Riverdale, N.J. shopping center welcomed Best Buy as a new tenant. Click here for more. TRD [more]

Gallery owner Stefania Bortolami packing up her self-titled shop at 510 West 25th Street and moving five blocks south to 522 West 20th Street, both between 10th and 11th avenues. The move marks an upgrade for the dealer — at 6,000 square feet, her new digs are 2,000 square feet larger than the last. Bortolami, who had been at the 25th Street location for five years, said that she selected her new locale based on its anti-cutesy air. “Twentieth Street isn’t charming. It isn’t lined with trees,” Bortolami said. “It feels a bit rough, and that’s nice.” Her transition to a new space comes on the heels of a massive gallery migration around the West 20s, which industry experts pin to recent “shifts in the New York real estate market,” ArtInfo said.

At actor Gerard Butler’s Manhattan abode, you need only look up remember that his break-out role in “300″ was based on classic Greek mythology — the ceiling fresco of the rape of Ganymede is there to remind you. In this month’s Architectural Digest, Butler swings wide his 13-foot doors in Chelsea, offering a behind-the-scenes look at his “bohemian old-world rustic chateau,” home, as describes it, “with a taste of baroque.” The two-story loft comes complete with limestone lions, crystal chandeliers and massive columns.

From left: 360 Smith Street, 73 Pineapple Street, 303 East 51st Street, Beekman Tower and 189 Schermerhorn Street

From the February issue:Hundreds of dormant construction sites still dot the city, but a
handful of these beleaguered projects are finally seeing new life –
even if it’s not what was once dreamed of for the location. Those that
have seen some type of resolution were able to do so by selling off
their debt at steep discounts, slimming their construction costs or
setting their sights way lower.
This month, The Real Deal tracked down 20 stalled projects
that have seen some type of resolution within the past several months
(see chart after the jump).  [more] [more]

While it may lag behind cities like Seattle and San Francisco as far as corporate collar-loosening goes, New York City is beginning to see more office buildings that embrace creative interior layouts. Adam Mundy, global director of design for M. Moser, an interior architecture firm, said that more offices are following the trend in hopes that it will inspire hard work and creativity. “People are so much more aware of their spaces now, of the lighting and the materials and what being comfortable in your space can do for the work flow,” Mundy said. New York offices are pursuing this concept in both subtle and outlandish ways, according to the New York Post. Google’s office in Chelsea is a veritable playground, with slides and open spaces, while Bloomberg L.P. has incorporated glass walls that it feels enhance openness in the office.