WHEN chef/owner Anita Lo closed her Asian-fusion Bar Q in the Village last week, she said of diners’ tastes in the miserable economy, “All they want is burgers.”
If that’s true, nobody’s better positioned to cash in on the trend than Douglas Boxer, owner of the popular Rare Bar & Grill and the rooftop Rare View lounge in the Shelburne Hotel and of a second Rare Bar & Grill on Bleecker Street.
The son of prominent real-estate barrister Leonard Boxer just signed one of the more interesting eatery leases in quite a while.
This fall, Boxer will open two venues totaling 7,000 square feet in the new Wyndham Hotel under construction on West 26th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Boxer said the new burger joint will have a 1,000 square-foot lobby bar on the ground floor and a 3,000 square-foot restaurant below grade.
On the hotel’s top floor (21), Chelsea View, with 3,000 square feet, will occupy a “temporary enclosure” giving it the flexibility to be open year-round.
Boxer said the new restaurant “will be the same concept as at the Shelburne,” where burgers are offered using different meats and in myriad varieties.
Both the burger joint and the rooftop lounge will be designed by Glenn Corbin, of Del Posto fame.
The new hotel topped off last week. Boxer’s lease is with Infinity Capital Management, led by Steve Kassin, which is developing the hotel with equity partner Citigroup. The property will carry the Wyndham flag under a licensing agreement.
Lease terms were unavailable. Kassin did not return a call.
*
Don’t look now, but that’s a real Tower 4 – oops, 150 Greenwich St. – getting built at Ground Zero’s southeast corner.
The photo on this page clearly shows that work on the first of Larry Silverstein‘s World Trade Center skyscrapers has moved from the foundation to the superstructure stage.
The boxy structures on the floor of the pit are the first stage of what will be the concrete core of the 64-story, 1.8 million square-foot tower, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki and expected to open in 2012.
Concrete for the building’s basement and part of the core was poured in the past two weeks. It’s unclear when structural steel will rise, but Silverstein has ordered enough for the whole job.
When completed, 150 Greenwich St. will be the new home of the Port Authority, which has committed to leasing one-third of its space. Silverstein also has an option to “require” the city to lease 600,000 square feet more.
The project isn’t entirely out of the woods yet. A “soldier pile” wall built by the Port Authority to shore up the earth beneath the No. 1 line subway “box” oversteps a segment where some of the tower’s footings will go on the western side.
Sources said Silverstein and the PA are working together to resolve the issue.
Matters involving security, underground vehicular access and utilities also need to be worked out.
But after years of little activity in Ground Zero, it’s heartening to see Tower 4 and the PA’s Freedom Tower pushing ever so slowly skyward.