Long-Planned Four Seasons Opens in New York

By Veronica Grecu

Four Seasons Downtown New York

New York—Four Season’s second hotel in New York City opened recently in Downtown Manhattan, an area that has been widely known as the city’s stern financial core, but in recent years has been sizzling with activity.

Developed by Silverstein Properties as part of a 15-year-long effort to rebuild and revive the soaring area around Ground Zero, the Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown occupies the first 24 floors of the 926-foot, 82-story mixed-use tower at 30 Park Place. The hotel is located on the same city block as the Woolworth Building and within walking distance from Wall Street and the World Trade Center. It has its own address at 27 Barclay St., but it can also be accessed through celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck’s CUT restaurant at 99 Church St. and through a private entrance and lobby at 30 Park Place.

The hotel’s first floors are occupied by lobbies, lounges, restaurant and bar spaces, ballrooms and meeting facilities, as well as a spa and a fitness center with pool. Designed by global design stars Yabu Pushelberg, the luxury hotel features 185 rooms, of which more than one quarter are suites, including a 3,700-square-foot royal suite. A public plaza is located on the hotel’s eastern side.

Average room prices at Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown range between $649 per night for a deluxe room and $2,299 per night for a specialty suite.

“The opening of Four Seasons Hotel Downtown is the capstone on a banner year for Lower Manhattan. This year we opened the World Trade Center transportation hub, along with dozens of new shops and restaurants. Downtown has fully returned as a premier place for business, and visitors are coming to Lower Manhattan in record numbers. In addition, the residential neighborhood around us has become a model of what is best and most exciting about New York,” said in a press statement Larry Silverstein, president & CEO of Silverstein Properties.

Silverstein purchased the former Moody’s corporate headquarters at 99 Church St. back in 2007 in a joint venture with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Financing for the $1 billion hotel and residency development was provided by a leading hedge fund, while Cumming Corp. provided ongoing project monitoring services on behalf of the lender.

The elegant limestone high-rise broke ground in late 2013 under design plans by startchitect Robert A. M. Stern and was completed earlier this year. The tower’s residential component consists of 157 luxury condos that are already more than 75 percent sold. According to Curbed NY, the most expensive apartment in the building was sold for a whopping $29.5 million.

Rendering courtesy of Silverstein Properties