JV Lands $120M Construction Loan for Times Square Hotel

A partnership between Atlas Hospitality and Flintlock Construction has secured a $120M construction loan for a 32-story hotel that will be built at 711 Seventh Avenue in Times Square.

Beach Point Capital Management provided the three-year, floating-rate loan, which includes two, one-year extension options.

The venture will build a 401-key hotel on a former retail site on the corner of 48^th Street that will operate under the Voco Brand. IHG Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Voco brand, will operate the property—the first ground-up Voco hotel in NYC.

Voco characterizes itself as an “upscale, lifestyle” brand. “We fill our rooms with thoughtful comforts like cozy bedding, luxury bathroom amenities, and fast Wi-Fi, so you can indulge the time to yourself.”

Atlas filed plans two years ago to build a 140K SF hotel on the Seventh Avenue site. Flintlock, however, filed a lawsuit against SL Green Sam Chang’s McSam Hotel Group and Natixis over lack of access needed from to demolish the existing retail properties for the hotel construction, according to a report in TheRealDeal.

An agreement eventually was reached that enabled the partners to demolish the buildings on the site earlier this year. Construction is expected to be completed in Q3 2025.

Atlas is developing two other hotels in Manhattan, 120 Water Street in the Financial District and 305 West 48^th Street in Times Square.

Santa Monica, CA-based Beach Point Capital recently paired with Invictus Real Estate Partners and Maxim Capital Group on a $62M construction loan for 1730 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, a grocery-anchored mixed-use development.

NYC’s luxury hospitality sector currently is notching a year-to-date RevPAR (revenue per available room) of $334, which exceeds the pre-pandemic level of $297 in 2019—three times higher than the RevPAR in June 2021, according to new data from STR.

Tourists are flooding into Manhattan and business travel is showing a stronger pulse, pushing occupancy and room rates at high-end properties back to the stratosphere.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, two of the most famous lodgings in New York—the Four Seasons in Midtown and the Plaza on the edge of Central Park—may be getting ready to join the party.

The Four Seasons, a 52-story tower designed by I.M. Pei in 1993, has been closed for three years—and not just because of the pandemic: the hotel’s owner, billionaire Ty Warner and the hotel’s manager, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, have been locked in a contract dispute that kept the hotel closed after the pandemic ended, WSJ said.

Most of the Plaza’s hotel space has remained shuttered, including the famous Oak Room bar and a basement space occupied by the Todd English food hall. In 2005, the top floors of the Plaza were converted in a $400M renovation to luxury condos, with 282 hotel rooms remaining in the bottom floors.

Two operators are in the midst of competing to take over the management of landmark hotel, which has a commanding view of Columbus Circle and the park to the north.

According to WSJ, if Warner agrees to a new contract—which the Journal said may happen by end of the summer, according to “people familiar with the situation”—enabling the 368-room Four Seasons to reopen, it could directly determine the winner of the competition to take over the management of the Plaza.

The Plaza, built in 1907, was acquired by Katara Hospitality—a wealth fund of Qatar—for $600M in 2018. According to WSJ, Katara is planning to renovate the hotel after it selects a new manager. The finalists to manage the Plaza are Four Seasons and luxury hotel manager Raffles Hotels & Resorts, which is moving its headquarters from Paris to New York.

If Warner renews his contract with Four Seasons, the midtown hotel will undergo its own renovation, most likely ceding the Plaza management to Raffles, WSJ reported.