NEW YORK CITY-Members of the Real Estate Lenders Association got a glimpse inside the mind of a developer on Monday, at a breakfast in Midtown East, when Steven Witkoff, chairman and CEO, the Witkoff Group, was interviewed on stage by Michael Stoler, managing director, Madison Realty Capital.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Witkoff revealed some of the thinking behind numerous projects currently being worked on by his firm. First up was 701 Seventh Ave., a massive mixed-use project that's slated to include a 500-room hotel. “This property was always going to be mixed-use, and the hotel was the key to the deal,” he said. Also included in the hotel is 50,000 square feet of meeting space/food and beverage operations.

Stoler, noting that no one in the past could make a go of the Park Lane Hotel—“not even when she was alive,” he said, referring to Leona Helmsley—asked about Witkoff's plans for the property, which he bought for $650 million earlier this year. “We're going to operate it as a hotel for at least two years, with an unlevered return of at least 4%, and then see where we're going to do,” said Witkoff, noting that a future incarnation likely still would have a hotel component, as well as condominiums. “The best income you want is hotel,” he asserted, “because it can be turned off with 24-hour notice.”