Postby itsjrd1964 » 07 Feb 2019 02:14
In some ways, it's a similar conversion to the LTV Tower of a few short years ago. Both buildings were built with a bank and office space in mind, not apartments, hotel, and restaurant in mind. The apartments and hotel will require much in the way of water lines (especially hot water, which the building likely had little of, other than for the occasional hallway bathroom sink), good elevator/escalator infrastructure, communications/telecom/internet/media connectivity, and more, all in a building that is over 50 years old, that likely had mold and asbestos when the conversion work first started. I've not been in the building when it was any of its previous iterations, but I would guess the intricacy of the building then/now would have to be looked at when putting in all the different planned parts. The Statler was no slouch when it came to that, there were many different parts to get moving again. With the stops/starts/etc that this conversion has had, you have to wonder how potential lenders think about this. Are the developers good partner material? Will they be able to work with the capital they'll receive? Will they go over-budget and need to go back to the well for more? Do potential tenants really want to partner and do business with them? Will the City get tired of them after a while? I'm not taking up for them, but there may be things we don't know about, other than the sheer obvious about the lengthy time it's taken up to now. I hope it doesn't become a scar and a money pit. It will be an awful big and prominent one if it does.