The former home of Life magazine, now the boutique hotel Luxe Life, is hitting the market after reopening in February, just weeks before the pandemic shut down hotels across the city.
The hotel has been closed since March, according to records from the state’s Department of Labor.
The 38,000-square-foot building, at 19 W. 31 St., is currently operated by Luxe, a Los Angeles–based hospitality group led by hotelier Efrem Harkham. Luxe rebranded the property, formerly known as the Life Hotel, after a gut renovation by the building’s owner, David Mitchell of Mitchell Holdings.
Mitchell purchased the property from Abraham Puchall in 2015 for $41 million. Puchall had been operating the building as the budget-friendly Herald Square Hotel.
Last year Puchall’s holding company sued Mitchell for a $650,000 balance over the building’s air rights, which Mitchell’s company didn’t pay for when it purchased the building, according to court documents. In July the state Supreme Court in Manhattan ordered Mitchell to pay Puchall close to $1 million, including interest.
The hotel has 98 rooms across six stories now used for guests. The building was constructed in 1894 as the headquarters for the now-defunct Life. In 1936 the magazine was sold to media magnate Henry Luce, who moved the publication’s offices to Rockefeller Plaza.
It’s unclear what will become of the building, which is being marketed as a hotel, but investors and developers have their eyes on distressed properties that they can transform to other uses including assisted living, offices and apartments.
As of 2017, two years after Mitchell bought the property, the hotel had $41 million in loans attached to it, property records show, including debts from previous owners and extra financing he secured on his own.
At least 10 other hotels in the city are in arrears on their mortgage and collectively owe more than $800 million. They include The Standard, High Line, in the Meatpacking District and the Holiday Inn in the Financial District.
There won’t be any meaningful uptick in tourism until at least 2025, experts say, and the future of hotels in the city remains murky.
Representatives for Luxe Hotels and Mitchell Holdings did not respond to requests for comment.
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October 27, 2020 at 11:45PM
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