https://www.crainsnewyork.com/commer...oosevelt-hotel
Inside the push to landmark the beleaguered Roosevelt Hotel
NATALIE SACHMECHI
January 20, 2022
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The historic Roosevelt Hotel, shuttered since December 2020, looks desolate and forgotten to the untrained eye.
But beneath the boarded-up windows and behind the homeless New Yorkers taking shelter under its awnings lay layers of international legal disputes, a souring relationship with the city’s hotel union and a push from local officials to win landmark status for the site.
Amid concerns that the building at East 45th Street will be converted to another use by its current owners, Pakistan International Airlines, City Councilman Keith Powers—along with Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, state Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Richard Gottfriend—is calling on the city to landmark the hotel so that it can’t be torn down or altered in any significant way, according to a letter obtained by Crain’s.
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”As one of Manhattan’s only major hotels that has not yet even partially reopened since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are concerned that its future may be in jeopardy,” Powers wrote in his missive, addressed to Sarah Carroll, chairwoman of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The property’s owners are also involved in a dispute with the Hotel Trades Council for failing to comply with the city’s new severance law, which requires any hotel that had not opened as of Nov. 1 to pay its workers $500 per week in severance.
As of Jan. 20, the building had accumulated $7 million in unpaid severance fees, the HTC claims, and is in a dispute with the owners over the unpaid sum and for failing to pay withdrawal liabilities under its union contract with the employees. The owners are suing the city over the law to avoid liability for the severance law.
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But the law contains an exception for inns that are being converted to another use. To help the hotel’s former staff keep their jobs and their severance payments, the HTC would like the building to achieve landmark status and remain a hotel, it said.
“The Roosevelt is an iconic hotel that should reopen and remain the fixture it has been for generations,” HTC President Richard Maroko said.
The 1,013-room building’s issues reach deeper than scuffles with local interests.
The Pakistani government, which runs the airline, is battling over the property in U.S. District Court in Manhattan—and in international court in the British Virgin Islands—with Australian mining company Tethyan Copper.
Pakistan is alleged to have reneged on a mineral-rights deal with Tethyan in the Balochistan region. As part of a $6 billion award granted to the mining company, Tethyan wants to get its hands on the property, according to court documents.
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The hotel has been struggling since it was acquired by the airline. During the first 16 years of its ownership of the property, it lost at least $70 million because the hotel was desperately in need of renovations.
But even after a nearly $100 million revamp helped the property become profitable, the Pakistani government debated shedding the property to help its struggling airline.
Local developers have been eyeing the site for a potential office project—one that would span an entire city block and could be built much taller than the building’s current 16 stories.
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https://www.brecorder.com/news/40148170
Roosevelt Hotel: Inter-ministerial body being revived to sort out issues
Mushtaq Ghumman
19 Jan, 2022
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The federal government is to revive inter-ministerial committee headed by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission to prepare recommendations for resolution of administrative and financial issues of PIA’s Roosevelt Hotel, New York.
… The ECC approved recommendations of the committee in its meetings held on September 2, 2020 & June 16, 2021. Hence, the committee ceased to exist after completion of its task.
Subsequently, a meeting was held under the chairmanship of the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue (now Finance Minister) on November 16, 2021 to discuss prevailing issue/challenges of RHC. The MD PIA-IL while highlighting the issues requested the Chairman ECC for constitution of a committee with clear mandate to deliberate on RHC matters from time to time. Taking the delicacy of the said proposal, it was decided to constitute the proposed committee.
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During a high level meeting, presided over by the then Finance Advisor held on November 16, 2021 with regards to proposed designation of Roosevelt as Landmark, participants were apprised that PIA-IL had received three emails from IHR, the Management Company of Roosevelt, that Community Board 5 (CB5) Landmarks Committee, New York, was considering a request for evaluation for landmark designation of Roosevelt. In this regard, meetings of CB5 were schedule on November 30, 2021, and December 9, 2021, and thereafter recommendations would be submitted to Landmark Preservation Commission by CB5.
Participants’ attention was drawn to the meeting held on August 24, 2021, and chaired by the Finance Minister, wherein, among others, following decisions were taken: (i) as PIA-IL has no in-house expertise, therefore, a Technical Advisor/Consultant needs to be appointed who would vet the ToRs of the Financial Advisor by Privatization Commission and evaluate the feasibility report without explicitly referring RHC; and (ii) present scope of privatisation, ie, leasing out RHC site as approved by ECC needs to be extended to have more options, ie, RHC site may be leased/disposed-off as is and where is basis and demolition of present building of RHC and its reconstruction through joint venture project for mixed use development, ie, office and retail.
The Minister for Finance desired an update on the decisions, to which Secretary Privatisation Commission (PC) apprised the participants that the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) at its meeting held on November 15, 2019 on a summary moved by Aviation Division had approved constitution of a Task Force for framing Terms of Reference (ToRs) for leasing the Roosevelt’s site for setting up a Joint Venture Project.
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Regarding the decision pertaining to the Furniture, Fixture and Equipment (FF&E) of the Roosevelt, the participants decided that the Committee constituted by ECC in the past on the Roosevelt under the Chairmanship of Dy Chairman, Planning Commission, and comprising of secretaries Aviation, Finance and Law be revived and entrusted to deliberate on FR&E or any other matter(s), and submit its recommendations to the Competent Authority at the earliest.
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Last edited by NYguy; Jan 21, 2022 at 5:28 AM.
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