New Luxury Hotel & Apartment Building Will Rise on the Avenue of the Arts
Dranoff Properties and sbe are planning to build another hotel and apartment tower on South Broad Street, also known as the Avenue of the Arts. Dranoff and sbe are the developers behind the soon-to-be-built super-luxury SLS Hotel and Condominium on the same block of Broad. SLS will be almost 50 stories tall and will have a five-star hotel and condos, with a large fancy restaurant that will have live entertainment. This other new hotel will be called The Hyde, and will be a more moderately high-end hotel and residence. It is being designed by BLTa architecture firm.
The new Hyde will be 23 stories and 292 feet tall, a little shorter than the Symphony House across the street, a condo tower that was also built by Dranoff several years ago. It will have 76 hotel rooms and 83 apartments and a fancy restaurant of its own at the street level in the same location that the Starbucks is right now. There would be another restaurant on the roof, with a deck. The apartments would be above the tenth floor. There would be studios, one, and two bedroom units. The exterior will be brick and metal panels and the tower will have large, factory-style windows. Some of the parking will be across the street at the Symphony House.
The site would have to be rezoned to allow a taller, denser building than the zoning currently allows, so the developers and their lawyer, Peter Kelsen, would seek a change in zoning from City Council. Dranoff is trying to purchase the garage from the estate of Sam Rappaport, the notorious Center City slumlord. The developers went before the Washington Square West Civic Association monthly meeting already and are in discussions with the City Planning Commission. They hope to begin construction in early 2017. By then, the SLS will likely be well under construction and another hotel, to be built by Pearl Properties, should be under construction at Broad and Locust Streets, where another parking garage is being demolished right now.
By, Gabriel Gottlieb
