LHaus
Apr 5 2010

Starwood Capital’s slated hotel for Long Island City drifts ‘Aloft’

Queens Plaza hotel development site, LIC

Queens Plaza hotel site, LIC

Looks like the hotelification of Long Island City is experiencing a hiccup… one of the more prominent hotels planned for Queens Plaza has been Starwood Capital‘s ‘W Hotel’ offshoot ‘Aloft’, which is now officially in foreclosure, and worse:

“Lender U.S. Bank won a judgment for $17.2 million, in a decision published yesterday, against a developer that sought to build a Starwood Aloft hotel in Long Island City, but the project stalled and the site remains vacant.

In addition to the judgment on the loan, the decision awarded the bank $4.3 million in personal guarantees given by four individuals to secure the loan. The lender’s victory over the investors may portend further trouble for developers citywide who frequently provided millions of dollars in personal guarantees during the building boom to encourage lending, but who now are facing judgments by lenders seeking to collect on their promises to pay all or portions of loans.

The developer, Queens Plaza Development, filed plans to build a 16-story hotel at 29-37 41st Avenue in Queens Plaza near the Queensboro Bridge, Department of Buildings documents show. Last year, Starwood’s Web site identified the 249-room project as By the Bridge, with an opening date of Dec. 31, 2010, but that information is no longer available on the site.

The loan went into default in October 2008, and the bank sued in April 2009 for the loan and the guarantee. The defendants said, according to court papers, that the bank should simply take the property back in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure action, but the bank refused, instead pursuing the money directly instead of the property.”

And the NYS Supreme Court sided with the bank. Ouch.

10 Comments

Leave Your Comment Comment Feed

We are going to see more and more of these. Anyone know what’s going on with Crescent Club?

#1 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

That would have made for a great location for a hotel, was just there this past weekend. But the less hotels in that immediate area, the better, I guess. They’re all over the place!

#2 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

Of all the cheap, crappy hotels that have been proposed in the neighborhood, THAT one was probably the only good one. Too bad…

#3 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

Who hoo Its about freakin time we nailed those stupid Idiot “investors” right in their pocket. Why should we the taxpayers have to pay for all the losses?

Maybe now we can use properties like this to create affordable housing with 1 bedrooms for $100K…so real people who make $15 hr can actually afford them..

come on RE crash we need prices even lower.

—————————-
In addition to the judgment on the loan, the decision awarded the bank $4.3 million in personal guarantees given by four individuals to secure the loan.

#4 Rikky / 1 year, 10 months ago

I never had any hope that that was going to be built. Queens Plaza is a total armpit, it will take a radical change to clean it up and make it suitable for anything nice, I don’t see it happening.

#5 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

How do you expect Queen plaza to change when Bloomberg hasnt paid the city and states small 15 percent share to the MTA. We see what his reducing of the police force by over 3,000 officers with bad budget choices did to Herald Sq and Times Sq on Easter night with the thugs gang initiation night mess.
No where in Europe would you see that many tracks,stations etc with rusting steel beams elevated and underground.
That area does not anymore traffic with new buildings right off Queens blvd because remember that is a hub from everyone coming from some 30 neighborhoods in Queens and areas in Long Is. to Manhattan over the Queens Borough bridge. Queens Blvd is called the Blvd of death in case some werent aware.

There hopefully would be some sense to a limit of congestion in that area but I doubt it with these rabid developers.

#6 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

#6 drink much? ha

#7 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

#6 drink much? ha

Excuse me!

Your dumb remark makes no sense at all. Must be a developer.

#8 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

Excuse me!

Your dumb remark makes no sense at all. Must be a developer.

#9 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

Excuse me!
Your dumb remark makes no sense at all. Must be a developer.

#10 Anonymous / 1 year, 10 months ago

Leave Your Comment

Some HTML Allowed

Your e-mail will not be shown. Although if you have a Gravatar it will be shown here. Otherwise, anonymous comments are welcome.