THE Hudson Square area has long had a fuzzy identity – north of TriBeCa, West of SoHo, and still associated in many local minds with its printing industry past.
In recent years, of course, the district’s largest landowner, Trinity Real Estate, has created 6 million square feet of office space in buildings once used as warehouses and factories, and lured creative-industry tenants including Viacom.
Some say the neighborhood doesn’t yet have enough hip amenities, but that appears to be changing.
Tribeca Associates, which netleased the 8-story former warehouse at 330 Hudson St. from Trinity last year, has launched a $220 million redevelopment that will yield a 22-story building shown on this page for the first time.
It will be topped with a 170-room luxury hotel and boast a 5,000 square-foot restaurant.
Tribeca principal William Brodsky said 330 Hudson, between Van Dam and Charleston streets, will offer a total 300,000 square feet of offices in the existing 8 stories and two new office floors above them.
“It could be the only opportunity in Manhattan for this type of product,” Brodsky said – “a block of that size with the creative feel of a brick loft.”
Cushman & Wakefield’s Andrew Peretz, the project’s leasing agent, said it was too early to discuss asking rents, but he noted, “We’re dead-center in the midst of the new Hudson Square creative district.”
The hotel, to be run by an operator yet to be announced, will be designed by Brennan Beer Gorman architects with inte riors by Yabu Pushelberg, the firm that also did the Times Square W.
Brodsky said office tenants could take posses sion as early as next January and the hotel will be open by the end of 2009.
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Prudential Douglas Elliman clearly has no qualms about the future of the residential market. The firm just renewed two office leases in Midtown for a total of 76,379 square feet.
Prudential signed the two, 15-year renewals at Douglas Durst‘s 205 E. 42nd St., where it has 58,524 square feet, and 675 Third Ave. Cushman & Wakefield’s Jared Horowitz repped the tenant in both deals. Terms were not disclosed.
Dottie Herman, Prudential Douglas Elliman president and CEO, said the two locations “house our property management and mortgage companies, as well as one of our residential sales offices. These lease renewals reflect both our commitment to the continuing growth of Prudential Douglas Elliman, as well as our commitment to New York City.”