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112 West 25th Street

Plans for a new hotel at 112 West 25th Street have undergone several iterations, and the site — formerly home to the Antiques Garage — was originally set to hold a 29-story hotel, developed by Extell. That concept is now defunct, and Lam Generation, an off-shoot of the Lam Group, has taken over; a tipster submitted a rendering of the project, and YIMBY has the reveal for the soon-to-be 39-story Renaissance Hotel.

112 West 25th Street will have 330 rooms, splitting 177,513 square feet, and construction is expected to begin in January of 2015. Demolition permits for the existing structure were filed back in January, and Lam Generation is now in the process of securing financing with the help of an EB-5 loan.

The new details come without any mention of an architect, though an educated guess would place Nobutaka Ashihara behind the design, given the firm’s previous work with Lam Group on projects like 215 Pearl Street. Appearance-wise, massing is simple — and the building lacks any real detail, with a glass facade rising above a relatively attractive entryway — and as long as the cladding is demure, Chelsea should avert another disaster.

While 39 floors would normally translate into a relatively impressive height, it would appear that ceilings will be very low at 112 West 25th Street, and the new Renaissance will be far from prominent, blending with other post-war banalities that have risen along Sixth Avenue.

Architecture in Chelsea is often value-engineered to oblivion, and while 112 West 25th Street is unlikely to offer any extreme departure from the neighborhood’s new normal, at least it is a step away from its cousins rising along 28th Street. Changing zoning to accommodate residential growth is what’s ultimately needed, and if policy can catch up to reality, more developments like 221 West 29th Street could rise, boosting supply, and enhancing the neighborhood’s character.

Completion of 112 West 25th Street is expected in July of 2017.

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http://www.yimbynews.com/2014/08/rev...th-street.html