A rendering of the Chelsea Market expansion

The proposed nine-story, 90,000-square-foot hotel addition to the Chelsea Market expansion could soon be dropped, DNAinfo reported. The news came out of last night’s Community Board 4 Preservation and Planning Committee meeting — the first meeting for the Chelsea Market expansion plan since the Department of City Planning certified it earlier this month. An attorney for Jamestown Properties, who is behind the project, said the company could cast aside plans for the construction of a nine-story hotel if the board asked for it. [more]

West 37th Street Partners LLC, a joint venture between the Albanese Organization and the Buccini/Polin Group, closed on its purchase of a Midtown parking lot at 312-318 West 37th Street for $20.8 million, according to records filed with the city yesterday. This is Buccini/Polin’s first foray into the New York City real estate market.

The transaction, which closed Aug. 11, is slated to result in the construction of a brand new 300-room Garment District hotel between Eighth and Ninth avenues. Construction could start before the end of the year, sources told the Wall Street Journal recently though neither Albanese nor Buccini/Polin were immediately available for comment. -- Katherine Clarke [more]

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. [more]

New hotels are cropping up in unexpected places, according to the Wall Street Journal, in response to a growing demand for more affordable accommodations around Manhattan. Among the new hotels in the pipeline are a Yankee Stadium-adjacent Days Inn, a Crowne Plaza set for Long Island City and a Holiday Inn Express with a 2012 opening date in the Bronx. Joshua Muss, principal with Muss Development, said that, in the past, building full-service hotels outside Manhattan was “unthinkable.” Today, Muss said, areas like Downtown Brooklyn, where the MetroTech Center is a major draw, have numerous overnight options. “Who would have thought that at first there were no hotels [in the area] and now there are 30 within a mile or two?” Muss said. [WSJ]

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A new seven-story hotel is on its way up in Long Island City, in a vacant lot at 44-29 9th Street, where Vernon Avenue and 44th Road intersect. Described as a “transient hotel,” the building’s girders are already visible, LiQcity reported. This news comes on the heels of a massive construction effort in the neighborhood, with a residential building at 10-17 Jackson Avenue getting some finishing details added on and the Linea building on 44th Drive between 21st and 23rd streets receiving a brick interior.

The U.S. hotel industry will hit the bottom of its current cycle soon,
according to a Hotel Horizon report released today by PKF Hospitality
Research. The report predicted that revenue per available hotel room,
or revpar, will hit the low point of the cycle in the third quarter of
this year. The industry’s declines will likely total 17.5 percent in
2009, making it the weakest year on record, with a subsequent 3.5
percent decline in 2010. TRD [more]