Richard Born Dumps Chambers Hotel

Sonder was already out of the picture at the Chambers Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. BD Hotels is following suit.

Richard Born’s firm sold the property at 15 West 56th Street to the Toronto-based Hennick Group for $66.2 million, Crain’s reported. The deal for the 77-room property breaks down to roughly $860,000 per key.

BD and Caspi Development acquired the Billionaires Row site in 1998 for $5 million. The partners redeveloped the parking lot into a 55,000-square-foot hotel, which opened in 2021. Caspi owned a stake in the building up until its sale.

At some point, the developers handed operations over to short-term rental platform Sonder, which collapsed in November after Marriott International voided an agreement with the company, citing an alleged default.

Born distanced the Sonder collapse from the property sale, telling Crain’s the decision to sell “was more of a personal and strategic position and less of an economic one.”

Several eateries have come and gone in the past decade and a half, including Ma Peche, Milk Bar and Fuku, all of which closed in 2018. Today, the 3,000-square-foot commercial space is occupied by Felice 56, which is expected to continue operating, according to the restaurant group behind it.

Hennick and Caspi did not immediately return requests for comment from the publication.

BD owns the Chelsea Hotel and frequently invests with partners. Isaac Hera’s Yellowstone Real Estate Investments purchased the leasehold interest at the Watson along with the existing mortgage from HSBC in 2021 for $175 million, after Born and Ira Drukier’s BD defaulted on the debt the year before.

Meanwhile, Hennick & Company bought the retail hub at 410 East 60th Street in the Upper East Side for $153 million in 2024. Jay Hennick’s family office acquired the condo from Gazit Horizons, a subsidiary of Israeli real estate firm G City.

Hennick also controls brokerage Colliers International and apartment building management firm FirstService.

— Holden Walter-Warner