An ambitious partnership that would have seen Airbnb creating
hundreds of rooms at a Rockefeller Plaza office tower has been shelved.
The short-term rental website, which has upended traditional
hospitality in recent years, was to build about 200 apartment spaces
across 130K SF at 75 Rockefeller Plaza, owned and operated by RXR
Realty. But with the coronavirus pandemic bringing hotel demand in the
city to a standstill, the deal is off, Business Insider reports.
“Airbnb and RXR mutually agreed that, under the circumstances, it
didn’t make sense to proceed with the project,” RXR CEO Scott Rechler
told BI. “It’s going to take some time for the industry’s occupancy
rates to rebound enough where it justifies new supply.”
Both parties left open the possibility that the partnership could re-emerge down the road.
Aside from the Airbnb plans, RXR last year agreed for WeWork to
take 90K SF across four floors at 75 Rock in a cost- and profit-sharing
agreement. Meanwhile, Flexible workspace provider Convene, of which RXR
is a backer but which was forced to furlough more than 400 employees
last month, was planning to run a member’s club in the 32nd-floor
penthouse.
The move toward flexibility in a traditional office environment had
raised the eyebrows of some lenders, Rechler said last year, and
securing financing meant “a lot of handholding and meetings” with
lenders to explain why so much of the 623K SF building was being filled
with companies in the sharing economy.
“At 75 Rock, it required actually refinancing the building, because
the existing lender didn’t like the business plan,” he later told
Bisnow. “So we’ve had to bring in a new lender.”
RXR filed notice with the city in early 2019 that its $148.6M loan
from TIAA would be transferred to Wells Fargo in conjunction with the
profit-sharing deal with WeWork.
https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/hotel/rxrs-deal-with-airbnb-at-75-rock-is-off-the-table-104130
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