Upper East Side-based developer Lexin Capital plans to build a 30-story Hyatt House, the extended-stay spinoff of the hotel brand and the first of its kind in the city, president Metin Negrin told The Real Deal.
Construction began last Friday on the site at 101 West 28th Street, Also Known As 815 Sixth Avenue, in Chelsea. Hotel rates are expected to start at $280 per night for a studio and $480 per night for a one-bedroom room.
There will be 150 rooms and a 2,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space, all slated to be ready by 2015, Negrin said. About half of the units will feature a kitchenette, and a small market in the lobby will be open 24 hours a day. Nobutaka Ashihara is serving as the architect of record.
The plans also mark the developer’s first building in Chelsea and first dealings with Hyatt.
“We thought about developing it into rentals or condos, but we changed our minds after Jones Lang LaSalle did a study for us on supply-and-demand characteristics,” Negrin said. “We decided an extended-stay hotel would be good for the long term.”
Lexin bought a note on the then-foreclosed property in 2011. The firm then received $45 million in financing last week from the Bank of East Asia and New Jersey-based Fifth Third Bank. Jared Kelso of Cushman & Wakefield represented Lexin in the financing deal.
Hyatt hotel locations in The City Include 134 Fourth Avenue in Union Square, and 517 Lexington Avenue and 109 East 42nd Street in Midtown. The closest Hyatt House is at 101 Corporate Park Drive in White Plains.
Lexin filed new building permits for the stalled site in January, as previously reported. Before it went into foreclosure, Flatiron-based Adellco had wanted to erect a 32-story condominium property called the Remy, as previously reported.