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Old Posted Dec 20, 2016, 6:31 PM
Ned.B Ned.B is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KWILLSKYLINE View Post
I used to work at 208 S. LaSalle while they did the JW conversion. Seemed like the timeline of that renovation spread much longer than the inital due date. Should we expect the same for Essex? Also, the cost of these hotel conversion projects is absolutley rediculous, aside from the fact that JW charges $400 a night. Marriot spent 450 million to renovate 12 floors plus 3 basement floors. Plus they picked up the tab for the elevator and lobby renovation for the office space. They could have built a 60 floor state of the art hotel for that cost. I understand the point of fixing up Classic, Beautiful, Old buildings, but at what what point does cost take over tradition? Couldnt Essex save a butt load by just tearing down the old hotel and make one massive building instead.
Well there's certainly no going back now, since the developer had the Essex landmarked.

I think you are downplaying the importance of how much money these hotels make in rooms AND in food and beverage from their associated bars and restaurants in their downtown location. Also note that most of these recent conversions have happened in landmark buildings that cannot be torn down and have recently shown to have little use as office except as class C or D. Add to that that redeveloping in a landmarked building provides significant Class L tax credits. These projects wouldn't be happening if the numbers didn't make sense.

But specifically in the case of Essex, the fact that they have landmarked the original building suggests that they are planning to use historic tax credits. Plus I'm assuming that they are using the FAR/air rights of the Essex parcel to build higher on the new tower parcel. If they tore the existing building down and filled the entire site they either wouldn't be able to build as tall, or would have to purchase additional FAR in order to achieve a building of the same height with larger footprint.