Hung Pin Hung’s Brooklyn-based Pro-H Development plans to build a residential condo on the site of what would have been the 26-story AC Hotel NoMad, according to a representative for the developer.
Construction is expected to start in the spring. Pro-H bought the site at 842 Sixth Avenue from Developer Robert Chun for $30 million, records filed with the city show.
The Chun family had owned the site since the early 1990s. In 2017 it filed plans to build a hotel by Marriott, slating 168 rooms for the lot on Sixth Avenue between West 29th and West 30th streets.
The Danny Foster & Architecture-designed building was to use components built in Poland. But work at the site never got off the ground, and images from Google Maps show the site empty as of May this year.
Lender Avana Capital filed to foreclose on the site in December, claiming Chun defaulted on the debt and owed $33 million. The two sides settled the case in August.
The AC NoMad would have been the tallest prefab hotel in the world, topping the 19-story CitizenM on the Lower East Side at 189 Bowery by 114 feet.
The modular building method, which was relatively new when plans were announced in 2019, involves constructing the bulk of the components off-site before transporting and assembling them at their final destination. Its use in some New York City projects has thrown unforeseen obstacles into the development process.
Richard Born, whose BD Hotels built Pod BK as the city’s first modular hotel, told The Real Deal when AC Hotel NoMad’s plans were filed that he “would not do a 25-story modular building” because of the likely complications. CitizenM’s modular Bowery hotel opened more than a year later than scheduled and the construction process was restarted because of delays.
Marriott is viewed in the industry as a trailblazer for modular construction. As of 2019 it had completed 31 modular hotels in the U.S. and, based on those projects, the construction period takes about half the time compared with traditionally-built properties.
:
Read more
Commercial
New York
Marriott to build the tallest modular hotel in the world in NoMad
Commercial
New York
How this modular construction startup stacks a high-rise in one day