What was originally planned as a hotel with roof-top restaurant at 404 Lafayette Street will now be an NYU office building and will include a temporary replacement for NYU’s Coles Gym
It was announced October 27th that NYU has purchased 404 Lafayette Street / 708 Broadway (co-joined buildings at the higher floors) for a combined $157 million. The prior owner, Ed Scheetz of Chelsea Hotels purchased the property for $96.6 million and planned a 249-unit hotel.
In its new NYU iteration, the lower floors of the 151,000 square-foot space will serve as a temporary replacement for Coles Sports Center, while Coles is demolished and replaced by a new building, with renovated athletic facilities, as outlined in the NYU 2031 Plan. 404 Lafayette Street upper floors are expected to be used as administrative space while the Coles site is under construction; after the new athletic facilities open on the planned new Coles site, the building’s lower floors are expected to be used for administrative purposes consistent with the M1-5b zoning envelope.
The 708 Broadway entrance provides access to the upper floor offices while the 404 Lafayette St. entrance will serve primarily as the entrance to the gym. At present, it is anticipated that Coles Mercer St. location will close at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year.
These buildings, in the NoHo Landmarked District, have always been used as allowed office space. More recently the first two floors were leased by Crunch Gym which has since moved to 2 Astor Place. Considerable restoration is expected on both the exterior (historic) and interior (structure) due to serious deterioration of the building. A Landmarks application will be required for the exterior restoration. Interior work on these buildings will commence soon to meet the Coles transition deadline. A BSA approval for the temporary physical culture use by the new owner may be required. Neither density nor traffic is anticipated to increase.
See coverage of previous iterations here, here and here.