Manhattan may soon get what has become an increasingly uncommon sight: a ground-up hotel.
Harlem-based developer Artifact filed plans for a nine-story, 40-key hotel at 23-27 Allen Street on the edge of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, according to a Department of City Planning application. The project would rise about 120 feet, include ground-floor retail and span nearly 40,000 square feet, according to Crain’s.
The site is home to three low-rise commercial buildings, including a restaurant supply shop, art gallery and produce importer. All would be demolished. Artifact, led by Javier Martinez, bought 25 Allen Street for $5 million in 2022 but hasn’t yet acquired the two neighboring parcels, property records show.
A representative for the developer declined to comment on the application.
If built, the hotel would stand out in multiple ways. New Manhattan hotel developments have slowed to a crawl since the city enacted a 2021 law requiring special permits for ground-up hospitality development, a measure backed by the Hotel Trades Council despite real estate industry warnings that it would choke supply.
With financing still tight, operators wary of overbuilding in a market still stabilizing from the pandemic and an increasingly burdensome process at hand, filings for hotel projects have been exceedingly rare.
As of November, there were only three hotel special permit applications filed in the previous 12 months, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report. Those three developments accounted for 656 rooms, according to the Department of City Planning’s data portal.
That scarcity makes the scale of Artifact’s proposal notable. Though a small hotel by scale, the project would be among the few entrants in a city that has seen almost no fresh hotel inventory permitted in recent years.Â
Artifact is best known for Harlem residential projects like the Harlem Collective coworking hub and a 421a-backed rental at 2335 12th Avenue.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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