255 West 34th Street’s Superstructure Rises in Midtown, Manhattan

255 West 34th Street, designed by Stonehill Taylor Architects.

Construction is rising on 255 West 34th Street, a 33-story hotel tower in Midtown. Designed by Stonehill Taylor Architects and developed by The Chetrit Group, the 155,594-square-foot development will yield 330 hotel rooms directly across from One Penn Plaza, on the southern edge of the Garment District between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Flintlock Construction Services, LLC is the general contractor for the project.

Excavation was underway at the time of our last update in October 2019, but the site sat quiet through 2020. Progress has picked up over the past few months, and the reinforced concrete superstructure now stands nine stories high.

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

The top section is laden with steel rebar and formwork as new levels are poured. The first three stories have very high ceilings and should likely hold the hotel amenities and mechanical systems. The hotel floors appear to start on the fourth story, where the ceiling height is reduced.

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

255 West 34th Street. Photo by Michael Young

The main rendering depicts a cantilever and blank wall on the western elevation of the edifice. It will take a little bit more time before construction workers reach this protruding portion of the tower. The level featuring the cantilever is clad with tall dark metal grilles, likely indicating a mechanical floor. The rest of the stories above will be covered in a grid of floor-to-ceiling glass and warm-colored panels that face south toward One Penn Plaza, Madison Square Garden, and the James A. Farley Building that holds the new Moynihan Train Hall.

255 West 34th Street, designed by Stonehill Taylor Architects.

An original completion date for 255 West 34th Street was slated for this summer. YIMBY predicts the hotel to be done sometime near the end of 2022.

Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail

Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews

.

10 Comments on "255 West 34th Street’s Superstructure Rises in Midtown, Manhattan"

  1. David in Bushwick | September 14, 2021 at 8:28 am | Reply

    Another hotel setback, but at least they maintain the street wall.

  2. What’s with all these hotels being built? You’d think the whole world is rushing to come visit NYC.

    • Hotels are half empty because the US *still* does not allow entry by most international travelers, including most nationals of the EU, Brazil, China, and the UK. Once international travel and tourism is allowed again, the NYC hotel market will rebound pretty quickly. A lot of people seem to be under the mistaken impression that Manhattan is dead due to lack of demand, not even realizing that the US isn’t allowing most tourism and business travel.

      NYC wants to effectively ban all new hotel construction, so developers and operators likely want to get shovels in the ground before that happens so they can take advantage of the coming protection from market competition. The days of having to pay $400+/night to stay in Manhattan will be back when that happens.

      • “A lot of people seem to be under the mistaken impression that Manhattan is dead due to lack of demand, not even realizing that the US isn’t allowing most tourism and business travel.”

        Tell that to that Louis Rossmann fella.

      • Well, right now developers can build hotels in areas that are zoned for commercial and manufacturing uses as well as some residential areas. It is the more lucrative use. Rather than wait and hope that a manufacturing area is rezoned for residential or build a more expensive office building in a commercially zoned area, hotels are the quicker and cheaper way to maximize value on a site.

  3. E-nough with the cantilevers. I’ve had it.

  4. The old “New Yorker” hotel on the NW corner of 34th and 8th is visible in one of the photographs. It was once the largest hotel in the world with 2,000 rooms. I’ve been out of NY for so long that I don’t remember what happened to the building after Sun Moon had it.

  5. It looks allright. Let’s just see how that cantilever turns out.

  6. Yes, compare this with the New Yorker

Leave a Reply to tacony Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.


*