The relentless advance of teleworking changed the way of inhabiting cities. The possibility of working from home, saving money and time that this implies by avoiding transfers, left a void in the office buildings. The vacancy of traditional work spaces forced developers and property owners to execute an action plan and reconvert them to be inhabited with different uses.
This happens both in peripheral towns and in large urbanizations. Such is the case of NYthe metropolis of the United States where many former offices today are transformed into hotels, casinos, restaurants and bars and where one of its most iconic buildings will soon mutate in that direction.
It is one of the buildings of the emblematic Rockefeller Center, which will allocate 10 floors that used to be offices and today are vacant to the world of hotels. According to information published by the Wall Street Journal, the owners of the building reached a negotiation with Aspen Hospitality to carry out their first luxury hotel. The entity in question is a private hotel management and investment platform, owned by Aspen Skiing Company.
In case of obtaining the corresponding permits from the city, the hotel will be the first branch of Little Nell HotelAspen’s only five-star, five-diamond hotel built in 1989. It will be located above the program studios Today of NBC that today work in the building and will potentially open to the public in 2026. In this way, it would be one of the first conversion projects to make use of the special permits that the city promotes in its conversion program.
The building complex that makes up the Rockefeller Center has rented 93% of its offices, although according to reports they are only half occupied on weekdays. But the vacancy is not the only reason why this change of scenery was decided. The Crown family, owners of Aspen Hospitality, are also co-owners of the famous center along with developer Tishman Speyer.
From the family they told that the hotel will have 130 rooms and will seek to attract tourists and corporate clients, since it will have “hybrid components” of a business hotel and a resort. Between the amenitiesthe hotel will include a roller skating rink and high-end restaurants.
As in Manhattan, the vacancy of the rental market is a scourge that fully attacks the downtown in the City of Buenos Aires. The skeletons of the buildings that used to house thousands of jobs today have a new mission: to become homes and functional spaces. That is why the city government implemented a series of incentives for both developers and potential buyers.
On the one hand, it attracts investors with the benefit of not paying the Gross Income Tax for a period of two years in projects located in the city. On the other, they offer loans to people who rent in the area of up to $270,000 to be repaid in monthly installments for three years, in order to revive the area.
