Rooms with a Vu – Kimpton Hotels Moves into Hell’s Kitchen

We love Kimpton Hotels and their sophisticated yet whimsical take on hotels, design, and decor. Kimpton already has a few properties in New York, including 70 Park Avenue and The Muse on W. 46th. So you can imagine our excitement for Spring 2008 when they will open up the Vu, complete with 222 guest rooms, in Hell’s Kitchen – not an area normally associated with hotels but the area has been growing and changing recently, with new restaurants, bars, and a tv show named after it. And with an addition of a Kimpton hotel, who knows what this area might look like in a few years. Well, NeoPolitan Urbanism from Harvard’s School of Design have an idea:

Here is a snippet of the NYTimes article:

“The pioneering San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group, which worked its way eastward, is looking west again — this time to Hell’s Kitchen.

An originator of the boutique hotel concept, Kimpton manages two hotels in Manhattan: 70 Park Avenue and the Muse, at 130 West 46th Street. Next spring, it will open a new $125 million hotel with 222 guest rooms at 653 11th Avenue, entering an area of the Far West Side of Manhattan that is distant from any existing hotels.

Converting a 1930’s printing plant on the west side of the avenue between 47th Street and 48th Streets and adding three floors, Kimpton will create the Vu, called that because of its 360-degree unobstructed vistas of the Hudson River and New Jersey, facing west, and the Midtown Manhattan skyline, facing east.

Owned by Horizen Global, a Manhattan developer of residential buildings, the Vu is the first new Midtown hotel going up far to the west of Times Square. If it is successful — as many industry executives predict it will be — it could pave the way for other hotels in the neighborhood.

…Kimpton initially found Hell’s Kitchen “an odd location” for a hotel, [but] was won over by what it believes is its growth potential…In recent years the neighborhood has attracted not only residential real estate development, but also grocery stores, bars and restaurants, migrating westward from Ninth Avenue.

…Kimpton looked at a site in what was then the remote meatpacking district five years ago, but decided against going in there; this later became the successful Gansevoort Hotel, at Ninth Avenue and 13th Street.

The designer of the Vu’s interior is the Rockwell Group, which has worked on other Manhattan hotels — like the W New York and Carlton — but has never collaborated with Kimpton.

Rockwell is designing a hotel that will take advantage of the site and the configuration of the existing industrial building, which has oversize windows and high ceilings.

A three-story addition by the architect Carlos Zapata that is approximately half the size of the roof of the original building is being built atop the existing structure.

The new 15th floor will hold an 1,800-square-foot glass-enclosed bar — with 360-degree views of Manhattan and New Jersey and doors that can open in fair weather — as well as a 230-square-foot rectangular Jacuzzi for guests and decorative reflecting pool. A new 16th floor will contain six guest rooms, including a presidential suite, which will itself be connected by stairs to a new 17th-floor roof deck, with another, smaller Jacuzzi and views.” Read the full article.

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