In a bid to attract more foreign buyers, the developer of Midtown condominium-hotel Cassa has hired brokerage Prodigy International to handle sales, replacing new development firm the Marketing Directors. Developer Solly Assa, a head of Assa Properties, told The Real Deal today that Prodigy is now the exclusive marketing and sales agent for the 48-story glass tower, located at 70 West 45th Street. “We’re targeting more of an international client,” he said. “Prodigy is really catering to international consumers.” Assa said that the Marketing Directors sold nearly 40 percent of the project’s 57 condo units since sales began in June. The building was designed by Cetra/Ruddy and TEN Arquitectos, the Mexico City firm headed by Enrique Norten. When completed this spring, it will house 166 hotel rooms operated by Desires Hotels. [more]

Architect Enrique Norten with a model of Cassa

Architect Enrique Norten, developer Solly Assa and other luminaries turned out this week for the launch party for Cassa, a condo and boutique hotel at 70 West 45th Street. Architect Nancy Ruddy, co-principal of Cetra/Ruddy Architects and a designer of the project with Norten’s firm, Ten Arquitectos, told The Real Deal in May that the building would be constructed economically. The project will include 57 residential units and 166 hotel rooms. Below are some photos from the party, held at 1140 Avenue of the Americas. Cassa’s condominium units are now in pre-sales. TRD [more]

This past week, Mexican starchitect Enrique Norten and his firm TEN Arquitectos announced that he had designed no fewer than four new projects for New York City.

That is surely interesting and would be even more exciting were it not for the fact that Norten’s noble and elaborate plans for buildings in the Big Apple have a strange, meandering way of coming up empty and then fizzling out.

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