The thousand-room Roosevelt Hotel opened in 1924 as a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan. It closed four years ago, a victim of the Covid pandemic. Last year, it re-opened, but not as a hotel but as a shelter for migrants. That was when its owner — surprisingly perhaps, the government of Pakistan — leased it to the city for three years to the tune of $220 million. More than mere shelter space, the building was supposed to become what the NY Post refers to as a “migrants’ theme park,” a place where officials say illegal migrants could get “hot meals, help with asylum paperwork, medical care and health screenings.” Moreover, it would be the vanguard of a series of such “arrival centers” that the Adams administration hoped to establish around the city.
The reality, according to the Post, is quite different. After serving more than 150,000 migrants from 160 different countries, the hotel and its street frontage have now become “an often squalid creepshow.” The building’s storefronts have closed one after another, “retailers having fled from rampant shoplifting, harassment of customers and doorfront urination.” The hundred-year-old building is fit now only for a date with the wrecking ball, which it may soon be facing, once the migrants are gone. One local shopowner the Post interviewed optimistically predicted that may be as soon as the end of 2024.
The reason is money, and the chance to make some. The Pakistani government is interested in marketing the property as a location for a “mixed-use project combining retail, offices, a new hotel, condo apartments and event space.” It has hired brokerage outfit JLL to pitch it to prospective developers. JLL’s New York region CEO Peter Riguardi:
We expect all the major developers and global capital sources to be interested. It will attract the greatest architects. The Roosevelt location is in the hottest part of New York City, close by Grand Central Terminal.
A hot opportunity like this one can make things happen. But where will the migrants go? Though migrants are required to leave shelters like the Roosevelt within 60 days, the city is still experiencing a steady influx of thousands per month, keeping the shelters full. So, the city continues to seek out other possibilities — including other hotels, such as the recently re-purposed 141-room Square Hotel at 226 West 50th Street — to place into service for wreckage like the Roosevelt. So it goes.
For more, see the NY Post.