A rendering of 219 East 44th Street and Ben & Jack’s Steak House

Normally when a developer buys and decides to demolish a building, its tenants are out of luck once their leases ends. But one restaurant near Grand Central has worked a deal to return to its original location once the new hotel taking over the site is completed in 2015, Crain’s reported. Ben & Jack’s Steak House, at 219 East 44th Street , will close at the end of the month, only to return once InterContinental Hotels Group’s new health conscious hotel brand, EVEN, is opened. The restaurant will even provide guests with room service. … [more]

From left: Morris Moinian of Fortuna Realty Group and a rendering of the Soho hotel at 525 Greenwich Street

Developer Morris Moinian of Fortuna Realty Group is partnering with his 28-year-old nephew and son of developer Joseph Moinain, Matthew Moinian, to transform a vacant lot at 525 Greenwich Street in Soho into a $60 million hotel, he told The Real Deal today. Construction will begin on the project before the end of the year, he said.

Matthew, who recently graduated from law school, has not joined the family business but is rather investing in the project as an individual.

Fortuna, which bought the former parking garage site for $12.75 million at auction earlier this year, is in negotiations with various management systems to operate the hotel, Morris said, including the InterContinental brand, which operates Fortuna’s Hotel Indigo in Chelsea. … [more]

Brack Capital Real Estate, the developer behind the James New York, the Olcott and 15 Union Square West, has just acquired the development site for its latest Manhattan project: a 290-room Hotel Indigo at 180 Orchard Street. The Lower East Side project, a joint venture with InterContinental Hotels Group, will also include retail and parking when it opens in 2013. BCRE and IHG paid $46 million for the site in an all-equity transaction, the partners announced today. Among the property’s planned features: a restaurant, bar, fitness center and outdoor pool. TRD… [more]

InterContinental hotel group is set to sell its Barclay New York hotel at 111 East 48th Street between Park and Lexington avenues, according to the McClatchy-Tribune. The Midtown hotel has an asking price of roughly $321.14 million. Although there is no word yet on which specific buyers are eyeing the 685-room, 14-floor hotel, sources say that it’s attracted interest from international bidders in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and China. But while InterContinental is looking to shed this property, the company isn’t downsizing across the board in Manhattan — last summer the hotelier unveiled the new 607-room InterContinental Hotel Times Square, with Shake Shack taking the ground-floor retail space. [McClatchy-Tribune via Hotel Online]

The Brooklyn Diner, operated by Shelly Fireman, is opening an all-Halal outpost in a Dubai hotel Feb. 15 with a menu that will include the oven roasted Dodger pot roast, according to the Insatiable Critic. Local Dubai cuisine will be featured as well, including Shish tawouk (marinated chicken kebabs), chelo kebab koobideh (charbroiled beef or lamb strips on rice) and a mild Thai green chicken coconut curry, which, “strangely enough… is extremely popular in Dubai,” Fireman said. The Brooklyn Diner currently has two New York City locations; one is at 212 West 57th Street, between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and the other is at 155 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue…. [more]

InformationWeek has released its annual list of the top 500 businesses nationwide for their innovative use of information technology, and a number of prominent real estate and hospitality firms have made the list. Among the top-ranked businesses was InterContinental Hotels Group, which was ranked No. 2 and owns a number of New York City hotels under the Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo and InterContinental brands. Marriott International was ranked 53rd; Hyatt Hotels was 128th. Also listed were Newmark Knight Frank and CB Richard Ellis. It was CBRE’s fourth year in a row being listed. For InformationWeek’s full list of businesses, click here. TRD

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As the U.S. hotel industry recovers, some of the country’s largest hotel companies — including Marriott International, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Hilton Hotels Worldwide and Hyatt Hotels Corp. — are beginning to divest their properties in an effort to reduce their holdings. With occupancies rising and revenue per room expected to post strong gains, now is the time to restart such divestitures, according to the Wall Street Journal. A reduction in new hotels means stronger cash flows for existing hotels, potentially resulting in rising property values. “It’s maybe the beginning of some opportunities, because there is a fair amount of capital on the sidelines interested in investing in this space,” said Jim Anhut, chief development officer in the Americas division of InterContinental Hotels Group, owner of brands including Holiday Inn and InterContinental. “We’re a cyclical business, and people are seeing the bottom of the cycle.” [WSJ]

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Dan Tishman

With proceeds from the $245 million sale of Tishman Construction last month, Dan Tishman has plans to push further into the hotel business, the Post reported. His family’s real estate business, Tishman Hotel & Realty, is a separate entity that includes the Westin New York at Times Square and the nearby InterContinental Hotel at 300 West 44th Street at 8th Avenue, which opened last month. “I think you will see more activity in that area,” Tishman said. “We’re heavily invested in hotels… We are extremely bullish on that sector and believe there will be a lot of opportunity.” He expects that hotel occupancy rates will improve next year. Despite his roots in construction, Tishman thinks it is smarter in this economy to buy existing hotels, specifically financially distressed properties, rather than build new ones. Tishman is eyeing the Times Square area from Eighth Avenue west, near the Javits Convention Center, where construction is underway to expand and renovate the complex. Large corporations, including the New York Times, Bank of America and law firm Proskauer Rose have moved into the area.

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Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, two of the largest central business
districts in the nation, topped this year’s Colliers International 10th
annual parking rate su… [more]

Dan Tishman

Dan Tishman is the fourth generation of his family to sit at the helm of Tishman Construction. In the last century, the firm has built some of the most high-profile projects in New York and around the globe. It’s currently building the iconic One World Trade Center. And while the firm mostly handles construction for others, it does some of its own developing too (it’s invested in two Times Square properties, the Westin Hotel and the InterContinental, the latter of which is to open within weeks). From his office at 666 Fifth Avenue (which, incidentally, his firm built), Dan, chairman and CEO, can gaze upon a skyline his family helped define. Click here to take a peek at Tishman’s desk.
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