Aby Rosen Could Lose Control Of The Ritzy Gramercy Park Hotel
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the city’s hotel operators hard, and one of the flashiest proprietors is no exception.
Aby Rosen has fallen behind on his ground lease payments at the Gramercy Park Hotel to the tune of nearly $900K, and his company, RFR Realty, is now facing eviction, Artnet reports.
RFR ground leases the renowned hotel from Solil Management, which posted a notice on the hotel’s door threatening to evict Rosen's company if payments aren’t made by Dec. 28, according to Artnet. Solil is the company set up to manage the estate of Sol Goldman. RFR pays it $5.3M annually for the ground lease.
However, the firm has not paid its November and December installments, and Solil issued a 14-day notice requesting $879,666.
The hotel closed at the onset of the crisis and has not reopened to the public. Like many of its peers, it faces an uncertain future in the current climate. While in 2019 New York City experienced a record year for tourism — with more than 66 million visitors coming to the city — some predict it will now take until 2025 for those levels to return.
The city was already oversupplied with hotel rooms well before the pandemic, and traditional operators were forced to compete with short-term rentals like Airbnb.
Some hoteliers have already succumbed to the economic pressures of crisis. On Friday, The Tillary Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn, owned by Isaac Hager’s Cornell Realty Management and partners, filed a Chapter 11 petition in New York bankruptcy court. The Hilton Times Square Hotel, the W Hotel Downtown, The Roosevelt and Midtown’s Maxwell all announced permanent closures in recent months.
