New De Niro hotel shakes off dust, fuss

The only people flocking to megastar Robert De Niro’s new hotel right now are men in hard hats — but the glitterati should get ready.

The long-awaited and highly controversial Greenwich Hotel will finally open this summer, according to developer Ira Drukier.

Along with Richard Born, Drukier is De Niro’s partner in the $43 million project at the corner of Greenwich and North Moore streets. Though it has widely been referred to as the Downtown Hotel, Drukier says that was never intended as its name; the project is called the Greenwich Hotel after the street on which it sits.

The Greenwich, which is geared toward the luxury market, will have 89 rooms. Drukier says he is still setting room rates but expects them to be “fair for the product,” in the $400 range or higher.

A celebrity-backed hotel naturally needs a star-magnet restaurant, and Drukier has inked a leasing deal for a New York outpost of Los Angeles hot spot Ago. De Niro has a long-standing relationship with Ago, since he — along with the Weinstein brothers — backed Ago’s namesake chef, partner Agostino Sciandri, for the launch of his L.A. trattoria.

According to reports, the New York Ago’s ceiling will sport several million wine corks. Drukier declined to comment on the restaurant’s interior design.

De Niro’s relationship with Ago is not the actor’s only venture into the restaurant business. He partnered with chef Nobu Matsuhisa and restaurateur Drew Nieporent for the opening of wildly popular Nobu in 1994, which has since spawned a worldwide empire of restaurants featuring Nobu’s signature Japanese-South American fusion cuisine.

De Niro also co-owns Tribeca Grill at 375 Greenwich Street, next door to the new hotel site, and has invested in other projects in the neighborhood. The Tribeca Film Festival, which he co-founded in 2002 to pump up the area’s economy after Sept. 11, is based at 375 Greenwich, as well.

Drukier insists the delays in converting the Greenwich Hotel from an active construction site to an up-and-running business are nothing unusual, noting that his previous hotel projects also have endured delays.

Born and Drukier are partners in BD Hotels, which owns 15 hotels in Manhattan, for a total of more than 4,000 rooms. Their boutique hotels include The Mercer, The Chambers and Hotel Elysee.

“We’ll open the hotel when we’re comfortable with a hotel that looks the way we want it to,” says Drukier.

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Yet the Greenwich’s look has been a major source of controversy. After winning Landmarks Preservation Commission approval in 2003 for one design, Drukier decided he wanted a taller building. That plan raised hackles on the commission, forcing a reduction in height. Architect David Rockwell’s brown brick exterior is meant to blend in easily with older brick structures in Tribeca, while the building’s curvedécorner is a nod to modern design. But critics have derided the effort at contextualization. Online and in print, they have compared the Greenwich’s brown brick to “an overbaked cookie” and worse.

Drukier says he is comfortable with the look. He adds that his company develops hotels of various designs, and felt this one worked well for this address. “I don’t have [overly] grand visions of hotels,” he says.

As Drukier’s construction crews race to finish the project, industry experts say the Greenwich is likely to benefit from the strong overall climate for hotels in Manhattan. According to Smith Travel Research, occupancy levels for luxury hotels held steady at 84 percent in 2006 and 2005.

Last year’s average daily rate for this segment, which has 56 properties with a total of 19,920 rooms, was $371.

The Downtown location may also be a boon to the Greenwich. Rebuilding at the World Trade Center site is expected to increase demand for hotels Downtown. The Greenwich is only about half a mile north of the site.

“Ultimately the big hole in the ground is going to see some massive development and a memorial tied into the whole thing,” says Daniel Lesser, senior managing director and industry leader in the hospitality and gaming group at CB Richard Ellis. “It may not be politically correct to say this, but Lower Manhattan is going to be defined as a worldwide tourist destination, and that’s going to be huge.”

Drukier is quick to point out that he and his partners were interested in building in Tribeca before Sept. 11.

“It wasn’t like only after Sept. 11 did we think of doing a hotel here,” he says. “This is a good neighborhood.”

One certainty, however, is that Drukier and his partners scored massive financing incentives in the form of $38.9 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds that the government offered after Sept. 11. These bonds were part of a federal program to assist areas that suffered economically after the Sept. 11 attacks.

These bonds help offset the high cost of hotel development. Excluding land, it can cost more than $800 a foot to outfit a hotel, with land costs in New York City adding another $300 to $400 per foot.

“You’re talking $1,200 a foot before the developer is making much,” says Sean Hennessy, chief executive officer of Lodging Advisors. “The De Niro hotel received substantial municipal sweeteners. That goes a long way toward making a project work.”

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