$7.5M multi-floor rehab completed at Knickerbocker retail in Times Square

On February 24, a $7.5 million rehabilitation of two floors was formally completed within the retail portion of 1466 Broadway, the Knickerbocker Hotel, in Times Square.

Invesco owns the 35,000-square-foot retail condo in the building, which is owned by the entity Gateway Times Square Retail, L.P. The entity on financing documents has an address at Crown Acquisitions. The hotel is owned by RLJ Lodging Trust, a publicly traded real estate investment trust known for its hotel portfolio.

The plans, pre-filed on October 31, 2019, call for a rehab of the sub-cellar, cellar, and first and second floors of the 187-foot tall, 16-story building. The filing representative was Mark Furman, a property manager with the brokerage CBRE.

The project is described in the filings as: partition, ceiling and door modifications as per plans. No change in use, egress or occupancy. The initial cost as reported in the DOB filing for the work described in this permit application is $7,500,000.

FRCH Design Worldwide was the architect.

The Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA), which invested in the Invesco fund that owns the condo, reported in June 2020 that the retail value had been reduced. “Negative performance [in the Invesco fund] is driven by the write downs in the Knickerbocker retail asset,” according to a LACERA board report.

In 2019, the retail was refinanced with $115 million from Fifth Third Bank, the Commercial Observer reported. The signatories were executives at LACERA.

Direct link to Acris document. LINK

Direct link to DOB document. LINK