The DoubleTree by Hilton New York – Times Square West, designed by Gene Kaufman Architect, opened at 350 West 40th Street, between 8th and 9th avenues. At more than 200,000 square feet and offering 612 rooms, the 35-story DoubleTree is both the largest hotel GKA has ever designed and the largest to open in New York City in many years.
The new DoubleTree has a dramatic façade: A red brick masonry street wall wraps around a courtyard that transitions to a setback tower. The tower’s slate-blue windows and metalwork take advantage of the uninterrupted western exposure to capture the light of the sunsets.
As the westernmost hotel on 40th Street, the DoubleTree has upper-story guestrooms that offer views of the Manhattan skyline, as does the hotel’s 4,000-square-foot Lovage Rooftop & Indoor Lounge. This glass-enclosed space has 17-foot floor-to-ceiling windows 36 stories above Times Square.
GKA’s interiors group, led by Natalia Tordorova, designed Lovage, which has a custom laser-cut mercury mirror brick wall, chainmail columns, walnut herringbone-and-polished cement floors, and chairs in stroke-painted velvet upholstery and Christian Lacroix fabrics.
The interiors group also designed Magnolia Restaurant, a ground floor American bistro and bar, and 6,000 square feet of interior and exterior dining space. White brick, natural textiles, wood and brass are illuminated by sphere pendant lighting and complemented by camel-brown leather upholstery, basket-weave fabrics, and linens of plum and cream.
The two venues are the latest properties of Addison Hospitality Group.
The new DoubleTree sits in a part of Manhattan containing eight other hotels designed by GKA. Seven of the hotels are on the single city block that runs from 39th Street to 40th Street and from 8th Avenue to 9th Avenue. A ninth GKA hotel, a Hyatt Place at 350 West 39th Street, broke ground on the south side of West 39th Street last November.
Sam Chang of the McSam Hotel Group is the developer of the new DoubleTree, for which Paul Vega’s VLDG handled the interiors.
Gene Kaufman Architect designed two previous DoubleTree projects for Chang. In 2010 the firm’s 142,000-square-foot, 412-room, 42-story DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel New York City-Financial District opened at 8 Stone Street. A year earlier the 80,000-square-foot, 241-room, 26-story DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel New York City-Chelsea opened at 128 West 29th Street.
