Orient-Express Checks Out of NYC Library Hotel Deal

March 3, 2009 at 9:12 AM | by Jenna | 1 Comment

Back in '07, we gleefully announced Orient-Express Hotels' plan to snap up a little piece of The New York Public Library (specifically, the Donnell Branch) to convert it into a hotel. What is currently a five-story libe building on West 53rd Street was going to become an 11-story hotel, but the first floor and underground would have still been owned and occupied by the library. The rest of the floors would have been deciated hotel space, and five of those floors were going to have direct access to the storied 21 Club on 52nd street (also owned by Orient-Express).

Kinda awesome, right? And the NYPL had agreed to the plans because the branch was in dire need of renovations that the system couldn't really afford — so everyone was supposed to get something out of this.

Unfortunately, the New York Times is reporting that the project won't be coming to fruition any time soon:

Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. has told the New York Public Library that it is unable to complete the purchase of the Donnell branch in Midtown for $59 million, the library said Monday.
The hotel company said in a statement: �The global financial crisis and the lack of availability of credit for construction and real estate development means that progress cannot be made on the project at the present time.�

Yeah, well, we don't need to cite a bunch of books (har har) to convince you that it wasn't really a good time to get rolling on opening up a 150-room property with $750-a-night pricetags anyway, but hopefully Orient-Express will still do something to follow through with its financial commitment to the library.

For now, you can get your Dewey Decimal fix by hitting up the Library Hotel at 41st and Madison.

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