Reopening of storied Brooklyn hotel delayed again

Property owned by David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit still without an operator

From left: Hotel Bossert and David Bistricer
From left: Hotel Bossert and David Bistricer

The reopening of the Hotel Bossert – once known as the Waldorf Astoria of Brooklyn – has been eagerly anticipated since developers David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit purchased it nearly two years ago. The wait, however, will have to continue.

The opening of the 280-room hotel at 98 Montague Street will be delayed until at least the beginning of 2015, Bistricer told the Brooklyn Eagle. The confirmation comes on the heels of the revelation that Bistricer has not selected a hotel operator yet.

That information came out Tuesday at a Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting, according to the paper.

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“I believe they’ve got a short list,” Columb Mahoney, an architect for the project with Woods Bagot, told the Brooklyn Eagle.

Bistricer and Chetrit bought the Brooklyn Heights property from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for $81 million in 2012. At the beginning of 2013, the Architect’s Newspaper reported that the Bossert could open that summer if construction remained on schedule. Then in May of that year, a spokeperson for Bistricer told the paper that it would in fact be another year until the Bossert welcomed its first guests. [Brooklyn Eagle]Tom DiChristopher