From left: Sam Chang and John Lam
Hotel developers would be forced to get a special permit for any project in Midtown East if a push by a labor union succeeds, Crain’s reported.
The New York Hotel Trades Council, which represents hospitality workers, wants the city to include the special permit provision in its Midtown East rezoning plan so that non-union hotels can’t come in to the area. [more]
2 Renwick Street and Sam Chang (inset)
Sam Chang’s McSam Group has sold the lease on a development site in Hudson Square to Eagle Point Hotel Partners, a New-York based hotel investment firm, for just under $50 million, city records filed Feb. 20 show. [more]
From left: Sam Chang and 98 Greenwich Street
Hotel developer Sam Chang has sold a five-story, 22,600-square-foot mixed-use building in the Financial District for $19 million, according to public records filed with the city today. Located at 98 Greenwich Street between Rector and Carlisle streets, the site sits behind a Holiday Inn property that Chang is reportedly developing at 99 Washington Street. The Holiday Inn, slated to be 50 stories tall, will be the hotel chain’s tallest property. [more]
Sam Chang
Two organizers for the construction laborers union were indicted on charges of inciting a riot and unlawful assembly, the New York Times reported. Robert James and Dennis Lee are accused of the crimes in connection with a protest outside a nonunion construction site at a hotel rising on 36th Street last September.
The indictment is the culmination of a six-year battle between unions and Cava Construction, which is owned by a Carmine Della Cava, reputed to be a member of the Genovese crime family. [more]
From left: Comptroller John Liu and McSam Hotel Group CEO Sam ChangJust as investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s office have been probing campaign contributions to Comptroller John Liu, the New York Post has found connections between at least $29,600 worth of donations and boutique hotelier Sam Chang.
Liu’s campaign has been under investigation, and fund-raiser Xing Wu Pan was arrested for allegedly using straw donors to hide contributions that exceeded the $4,950 limit mandated by city laws.
Records show Chang donated $800 July 1. One employee of the McSam Hotel Group donated $800 in June and six more employees of the McSam Hotel Group each donated $800 July 9. … [more]
Hotel developer Sam Chang has sold property at 32 Pearl Street in
Lower Manhattan to Hersha Hospitality Trust for $28.7 million, Real
Estate Weekly reported. He had bought the lowrise, along with the
adjacent 6 Water Street, for $56 million in 2008. The small buildings
remained standing even though Chang initially planned a tall hotel at
the site. Ashish Parikh, CFO of Pennsylvania-based
Hersha, told REW that it plans to build an 81-room Hampton Inn at 32
Pearl Street and is not buying 6 Water Street. But Hersha does not
intend to tear the property down, and instead plans a rehabilitation and converstion by adding additional floors to the seven-story
building. … [more]
An East Village development site where developer Sam Chang once planned to build a six-story residential condominium is back on the market for $5.2 million, according to EV Grieve. Chang’s McSam Hotel Group purchased the 4,324-square-foot vacant lot, at 397-401 East 8th Street, for $4.9 million site-unseen in 2007. A press release at the time described the deal as having been arranged “virtually in minutes over the telephone.” Four years later, Chang appears to be in the midst of a selling spree — he recently unloaded stalled hotel project sites in the Financial District and in Union Square, as well as his new Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street — and has enlisted Alan Miller and Paul Nigido of Eastern Consolidated as well as Lee Odell Real Estate to market this site, too. … [more]
Sam Chang’s McSam Hotel Group has unloaded a distressed Financial District development site where it had been planning a 36-story, Gene Kaufman-designed hotel, marking the third New York City project the developer has sold off in the past three months, according to city records made public today.
The site, at 33 Beekman Street, sits across the street from Frank Gehry’s brand-new 8 Spruce Street rental tower and traded June 15 for roughly $15.7 million — around 29 percent less than the $22 million McSam paid to acquire it in early 2007, public records indicate. A lis pendens was filed against the $19.9 million mortgage McSam held there in September 2010.
Kaufman’s plans had called for a 36-story, 270-room hotel that would have been the first four-star hotel in Lower Manhattan had it opened in 2009, as originally proposed. The red-and-yellow building was supposed to feature exterior glass elevators, four floors of amenities and meeting rooms, and a public plaza. … [more]
[Updated 10:54 a.m., June 30, with comments from Ashish Parikh, Hersha’s CFO]
Hersha Hospitality Trust said it agreed to buy the stalled Hyatt Union Square hotel in Manhattan for $104.1 million, or $595,000 per key, from McSam Hotel Group.
The hotel, at 132 Fourth Avenue, between 12th and 13th streets, was originally conceived as a Gene Kaufman-designed hotel for developer Sam Chang, president and CEO of McSam Hotel Group, but was delayed for several years amid a partial stop work order and other construction related problems.
Philadelphia-based Hersha said it will pay $36 million in cash, cancel a $10 million mezzanine loan that it made to the seller, plus interest, and assume two mortgage loans valued at $55 million. Hersha said the deal will close once construction is completed adding that it will not assume any construction or cost overrun risk as part of the deal.
… [more]
Hotelier Sam Chang has unloaded the Holiday Inn Express at 126 Water Street in Lower Manhattan for $36.7 million, Real Estate Weekly reported. The buyer was a subsidiary of Hersha Hospitality, for which this will be the 15th hotel in New York City. Chang, who runs the McSam Hotel Group, had purchased the property for $9.5 million in 2005 when it was a two-story retail and restaurant space. The 26-story, 112-room hotel that now stands in its place was completed during the summer of 2010, but by November, the property had been hit with a lis pendens, which marks the beginning of the foreclosure process. [REW]… [more]
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