From the creators of European airport “pod” hotels comes what could be the city’s largest hotel opening next year. Yotel, which launched three years ago by offering four-hour hotel stays to business travelers, is opening a 669-room hotel on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue. The 25-story tower, at the site of the Related Companies’ $800 million West Side residential complex, will cater to a somewhat less transient crowd. Not to be confused with the Pod Hotel at 230 East 51st Street, which caters to a younger clientele with bunk beds offered up for less than $100 per night, rooms at the new Yotel will be twice the size of Yotel’s airport pods and will cost between $200 and $250 per night. Yotel partners Simon Woodroffe and Gerard Greene said longer-term hotels have always been in their plans — their $285 million deal with Related was signed more than two years ago — but they’ve made mistakes, particularly in construction, as their company has grown. They said New York’s Yotel, which was designed by Rockwell and is already half-built, will cost £20,000 — around $27,054 — per room to build. IFA Hotels & Resorts backed the project and Woodroffe and Greene said their investment will have paid off within six to seven years’ time. [Financial Times]
Yotel to open pod hotel at Related site
