Times Square's Marriott EDITION Hotel Breaks Ground, Will Boast 76,000SF of Food Space

Times Square’s Marriott EDITION Hotel Breaks Ground, Will Boast 76,000SF of Food Space

October 29, 2015

Earlier this week, the five-star Marriott EDITION hotel, slated to tower over Duffy Square, broke ground. The 39-story, 517-foot tall building is being developed by a partnership between the Witkoff Group, Howard Lorber’s New Valley LLC, Winthrop Realty Trust, and Maefield Development. Going by the invented address of 20 Times Square (701 Seventh Avenue), the 370,000-square-foot tower will be the first hotel to rise directly along the Square’s “bow-tie” area since Gary Barnett opened the W Times Square in 2000.

Taking full advantage of its coveted, highly-trafficked location, the project will contain 76,000 square feet of retail and food and beverage space, as well as an outdoor roof terrace. Its six-story podium anchors the northeast corner of 47th Street and Seventh Avenue and will be wrapped by a 120-foot-tall, 18,000-square-foot LED display, which according to the Witkoff Group, “will be one of the largest and most technologically advanced in the world today.”

The developers acquired the site in 2012 for $430 million and raised $200 million in EB-5 financing for the $800 million project. New York’s classiest architecture firm, Platt Byard Dovell White (PBDW), are the designers, and this will be their largest project by far.

While the tower is a bit reserved for Times Square, the architecture will no doubt play second fiddle to whatever is displayed on it enormous curving LED screen.

A unique-to-Times Square amenity embedded in the design will be a line of hotel suites with corner balconies overlooking the square – only the nearby condo building 1600 Broadway on the Square has this potentially blinding feature.

Columbia Building when it’s long-existing billboards were recently removed. Photo courtesy of Aylon Samson

Now with excavation and underpinning work complete, the structure will rise from within the 105-year-old shell of the Columbia Amusement Company Building. PBDW’s project page says, “The development will be a multi-use, integrated urban hotel, retail shopping, and entertainment-center destination. It is designed to become an immediate global attraction and a new “must-see” New York City destination by offering an unmatched shopping, hospitality, entertainment, and media experience, all within the heart of Times Square.”

701 Seventh Avenue from the top of the TKTS booth

According to the Post, in attendance for the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday was Mayor Bill de Blasio, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Steve Witkoff, Howard Lorber, and hotelier Ian Schrager. Completion of the project is slated for 2017. Above is a look at the recent evolution of the corner with shots taken from the TKTS Booth across Seventh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPW8MSmnw_k

Image courtesy of CityRealty