The former Ritz-Carlton hotel in Battery Park City has a new life.
Scottsdale, Arizona-based Silver Creek Development acquired the lease for the Wagner Hotel, which had been abandoned since Covid amid a brutal, three-year bankruptcy process.
Silver Creek will bring in a new luxury hotel to Lower Manhattan, ending a dark period for the once-glamorous property.
The hotel’s prior owners Urban Commons and its principals Taylor Woods and Howard Wu amassed millions of dollars in debts, including to its lender, as well as owed on basic expenses such as electric bills. Silver Creek bought the loan in 2022 and sued Urban Commons after the firm allegedly defaulted on its $96 million loan.
The hotel, no longer under the Ritz-Carlton brand and dubbed the Wagner Hotel after Urban Commons bought it in 2018, became the least of Woods and Wu’s concerns.
Urban Commons’ grand plan to revitalize a historic ocean liner in Long Beach, California, flopped, resulting in Woods getting indicted last year for defrauding investors. Its REIT filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Woods and Wu were also accused of misappropriating Paycheck Protection Program funds. A Delaware Judge subsequently labeled the two “fraudsters” in 2021, noting the pair had “a history of wrongful acts and have proven that they are capable of shuffling assets.”
In 2022, Urban Commons put the Wagner hotel into bankruptcy protection, halting a foreclosure amid other challenges.
But Woods and Wu’s ongoing legal troubles came up during the process. A condo board, representing owners of 100 units above the 14-story hotel, had its own issues with the developer, claiming Urban Commons stopped paying its share of the building’s common areas.
Woods blamed some of the property’s troubles on Ritz-Carlton, alleging the high-end brand mismanaged the hotel. Woods also pointed the finger at Battery Park City Authority, the quasi-government agency that controls the hotel’s ground lease. Woods claimed Battery Park City Authority failed to approve the developer’s plans.
Woods and Wu were soon removed from controlling the debtor entity during the bankruptcy and replaced by a restructuring officer. Still, the process dragged on for years. Greg Corbin, who now leads Northgate Real Estate Group, was tapped to handle bankruptcy and marketing of the hotel. Silver Creek funded the property during the bankruptcy process.
Silver Creek, represented by the law firm Herrick Feinstein, was the only bidder and submitted a credit bid of over $78 million. In late August, the U.S. bankruptcy judge finally approved the sale of the hotel lease, confirmed the bankruptcy plan and approved a settlement between Silver Creek, Battery Park City Authority, the hotel union and condo board.
The judge also overruled the lone objection from a mechanic’s lienholder, which held up the sale.
Woods and Wu did not receive any of the proceeds of the bankruptcy sale.
They have both been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with securities fraud for defrauding two sets of investors in 13 hotels in the U.S, resulting in over $70 million in investor losses. Woods denied most of the allegations. Wu has yet to respond.
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