Plans Emerge for Ace Hotel’s “Faux Hostel” at 225 Bowery
By Billy Gray December 17, 2013 2:34 pm
reprintsThe trendy Ace Hotel brand will soon sidle up right next to the Bowery Mission with a so-called “faux hostel” (or “distilled service”) concept at the vacant 225 Bowery, formerly a Salvation Army shelter and community center.
Nataliya Donskoy of ND Architecture will design the spot’s 178 guest rooms spread over 10 floors and 57,793 square feet. Bowery Boogie, which first reported the Bowery Ace project in September, is now saying that the development will cost $5 million split between North Wind Group and the Omnia Group.
When it opened in 2009 at 20 West 29th Street (a former SRO), The Ace was instrumental in changing the perception and sobriquet of NoMad from a down-at-heel neighborhood of electronics and schmatta stores to a burgeoning capital of the young tech and fashion crowds. The shabby-chic hotel group currently has outposts in Downtown LA, London, Palm Springs, Portland, Seattle and Panama City. But opening next door to the 134-year-old Bowery Mission, one of the few remnants of the Bowery’s days as skid row, is an exceptionally potent symbol of a neighborhood or corridor going from gritty to (somewhat understated) glam.
As with the NoMad branch, the Bowery ace will include an inevitably popular ground-floor bar and restaurant. Alex Calderwood, the Ace empire mastermind, died last month at 47 in the chain’s newly opened London hotel.
