Battery Maritime Building Redevelopment
The restoration of an iconic Beaux-Arts ferry terminal building located at the southern tip of Manhattan originally constructed in 1909
by W42St
December 2019
When it comes to famous places around the apartments for rent in Manhattan, you’ve got your pick, depending on where you find yourself in the city. Around the way of the Financial District, however, the Battery Maritime Building deserves something of a special mention, as it’s been a neighborhood fixture since the early 1900s.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, this Beaux-Arts masterpiece at the corner of South and Whitehall Streets has long been a ferry building, transporting commuters across the water to destinations like Governor’s Island, and even served as an Army Post for a period in the 1950s.
Soon, though, a new kind of life will be breathed into the building, giving residents in Manhattan a whole new set of reasons to check this place out.
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“After an endless-seeming string of setbacks, it’s finally a done deal to convert downtown’s underused landmark Battery Maritime Building into a luxury hotel and restaurant — a project that’s frustrated city planners for decades.”
Just what do the years ahead hold for this historic New York location, and how will its upcoming metamorphosis change how visitors experience this timeless building?
WHAT’S HAPPENING AT
THE BATTERY MARITIME BUILDING?
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If you’re a long time New Yorker, you probably already know a bit about the Battery Maritime Building, and it’s long history as a location where ferries arrive and depart.
A long-standing landmark in the city, it was constructed in 1909, designed by the firm Walker and Morris, and is notable for its rather unique architecture, which includes more than “8,000 elements of cast iron, steel plates and angles, sheet copper ornamentations, ceramic tile and stucco paneled walls and a mansard roof system”
At present, it still serves as a ferry point for arrivals from Governor’s Island, but what you may not have known, is that there have been plans to transform this space since as early as 2009, when Dermot Construction won the bid to convert the building into a hotel.
Delays, including a rather substantial setback when Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, had put those plans on hold:
“The project was originally being developed by the Dermot Company, which signed a 99-year lease in 2015 with the city. But since Dermot left the project after completing about 60 percent of the work, the lease transferred in 2017 to the new development team, which includes Cipriani.”
The Battery Maritime Building is a project spearheaded by the Cipriani family. Marvel Architects & Thierry W. Despont Ltd were the firms overseeing the restoration, construction and design of the landmarked property, that will reopen in late summer 2021.
It will include a 110,000-square-foot private members-only club spread over the 5th floor, a 47-suite hotel, as well as event space that will add to Cipriani's collection of historic places in New York City.
Tedeschi was commissioned to create all the furnishings and FF&E for the hotel rooms and public areas.