Architect Karl Fischer got one step closer to building his dream hotel tower Downtown last month after V3 Hotel Management bought the VIM building on Duffield Street for $9.5 million.
This is the 22-story hotel whose underground parking garage would require the city to seize some homes and businesses on the symbolically named “Abolitionist Place.” Those buildings are believed by some to have served as stations on the Underground Railroad.
The $40-million hotel will take the place of VIM, a two-story sneaker emporium, at 237 Duffield St., and will include 180 rooms and 17,000 square feet of “immaculately situated premier Downtown Brooklyn retail space,” according to V3’s Web site.
It will also be “a fresh new addition to the ever-growing and expansive Downtown Brooklyn skyline,” according to the developer.
At a presentation last week, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership said there would be 1,803 new hotel rooms added to the area over the next five years.
The Fischer building is the latest in a series of hotel projects to come to Duffield Street since the city passed a Downtown Brooklyn upzoning in 2004 that allowed for more high-rise buildings on low-rise streets like Duffield.
Developer John Lam is building twin hotel towers at the corner of Willoughby — half a block from the Fischer building. The Lam-built hotels, like V3’s Hotel Indigo, will both be luxury brands. One will carry the Sheraton name, the other will be an “Aloft” hotel, an offshoot of the W brand.
Together the three towers will have almost 700 rooms.
Fischer, a Montreal-based architect, opened his New York office in 1999. His Brooklyn projects include four sleek condo towers on Williamsburg’s Bayard Street and two 15-story residential towers on the waterfront in Greenpoint.
