Construction is moving along nicely on the W South Beach as the hotel "topped off" their building on June 12. Although it's still been a long wait for us hotel geeks.
The 419-unit condo-hotel will open now in Spring 2009 with views of the Altantic Ocean from every room, a Bliss Spa and Mr. Chow and Serafina restaurants.
There will also be two infinity pools for guests to splash around in as well as beachfront access. One pool will feature poolside bungalows with flat-screen TVs and the fullest extent of W's Whenever/Whatever service. We bet the neighboring Gansevoort South (literally right next door) is just a teeny bit nervous for when this hotel opens.
By the way, the hotel's website is a must-see for its video of what strolling through the hotel and its grounds will be like. And also what life as a gorgeous supermodel is like as well.
The South Wharf area of Melbourne is covered with construction workers right now, but at least they've reached the top of the new Hilton South Wharf, being built next to the new Melbourne Convention Centre.
As Australia's unofficial "second city", Melbourne is aiming to beat Sydney one day and one way it might get there is through its huge boom in hotels.
With Australia's largest hotel under construction in Melbourne and a heap of others either on the way or on the drawing board, lil' brother Melbourne might just do it. The Hilton South Wharf and the Convention Centre project it's a part of are meant to attract thousands of visitors for regular vacations and especially for conventions and conferences.
The Hilton South Wharf reached a landmark last week with its "topping off" ceremony, celebrating reaching the 20th (and top) floor. Now they just have to fill in the details on the 396 rooms and finish up in time for the early 2009 deadline.
We think our love for delay-watching Thompson Hotels is quite clear, what with all the fodder we have from other debacles Six Columbus and Allen Street.
Now we turn our eye to their new property filling out and pepping up in Tribeca, Smyth, where Thompson hotelier Jason Pomeranc is giving himself some nice buffer time with a predicted Winter 2009 debut.
Scoping out the site ourselves revealed that not only are they progressing nicely despite structural concerns, but you can already walk through their lobby at 85 West Broadway.
Don't think you're just around the corner from checking in; what we mean is they've injected a pedestrian walkway right into the first floor construction, allowing any passers-by to tromp right through what will someday be a scene to rival the Saturday night wait for Plunge at The Gansevoort.
A tipster on the ground in the Meatpacking District snapped a few of these construction shots of the Standard NYC along with the following message:
It's gonna be some grand welcome - poor Gansevoort doesn't have a chance. Anyone with binoculars at Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi will be able to witness quite a few strip shows (and more) on any given night once it opens. This will be one sexified hotel.
Our tipster also said that if you look closely underneath the highline, there are some "silvery arched windows", suggesting these may be a part of the lobby.
Mad love to our tipster for sending us these shots. But frankly, we're just bored of looking at construction shots. Open this place up Andre!
Imagine yourself chillin' in your hammock this summer, breathing in the fresh air and checking out the great views around you.
Then imagine that hammock is indoors, and those great views happen to be of the jail. Also? You're in Brooklyn.
Sounds appealing, right?
We know, we know: not so much. But despite the strikes against it, we think Brooklyn's upcoming Nu Hotel sounds kind of cool and can't wait to check it out when it opens, er, "this summer."
The D.O.B. issued a stop-work order on the project because of a questionable crane in use for the construction.
The crane was manufactured by Kodiak and owned by New York crane -- just like the two cranes that collapsed this year -- and was to be taken out of service until a thorough inspection was completed.
But things didn't quite go as planned: The Real Deal (via the NYDN) reports that cracks were found "in the turning mechanism of a tower crane," which means the green light likely won't be coming any time soon.
We visited the brand new Arrabelle at Vail Square resort and retail plaza yesterday for the first time since its January 5th completion, expecting to be blown away. Instead, dust was blown in our faces from all the construction.
We had our eyes peeled for the fabled Ski Nannies (we assumed they would morph into like, hiking nannies or rafting nannies or something since it's summertime), but they were nowhere to be found.
But that was the least of our problems: we couldn't find the front door, either.
Last summer, we checked up on the Westin Riverfront Resort and Spa, a massive 19-acre condo-hotel development at the base of Beaver Creek Mountain (near Vail) slated to be completed "Summer 2008."
Well, we swung by the site to check on progress and, um, yeah. About that whole opening-this-summer thing? It's gonna be a stretch.
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by juliana
