75 Wall Street is a 43-story
mixed-use
Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to som ...
building in the
Financial District
A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...
of
Lower Manhattan in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. It contains Hyatt Centric Wall Street New York, a hotel with 253 rooms managed by Blue Sky Hospitality.
Designed by
Welton Becket
Welton David Becket (August 8, 1902 – January 16, 1969) was an American modern architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California.
Biography
Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washingt ...
& Associates and developed by London & Leeds as an office building, 75 Wall Street was announced in 1984 as the North American headquarters of British bank
Barclays. After the building opened in 1987, several firms leased space in the building.
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...
acquired 75 Wall Street from Barclays in 2005, and the Hakimian Organization and Peykar Brothers Realty purchased the building later that year. The upper floors were converted to 346
residential condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owne ...
s in 2009, while the lower floors opened as the Andaz Wall Street hotel in January 2010. Navika Capital acquired the hotel in 2022 and rebranded it as Hyatt Centric Wall Street New York.
Use as office building
In April 1984, British bank
Barclays announced it would construct a 36-story headquarters at the southwest corner of Wall Street and Water Street.
The building, developed by British firm London & Leeds, was the first to be erected directly on Wall Street in fifteen years.
Welton Becket
Welton David Becket (August 8, 1902 – January 16, 1969) was an American modern architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California.
Biography
Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washingt ...
Associates was hired as architect for the building, which was variously cited as containing a
floor area
In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...
of or .
Barclays would occupy as part of its headquarters and sublet the remainder of the space, consolidating employees from several other locations in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
As designed, each of the first 28 office floors was planned with of floor area, while the top floors were
set back and were slightly smaller.
Manufacturers Hanover Corporation
Manufacturers Hanover Corporation was the bank holding company formed as parent of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, a large New York bank formed by a merger in 1961. After 1969, Manufacturers Hanover Trust became a subsidiary of Manufac ...
financed the development, which was projected to cost $200 million.
There was high demand for office space in the Financial District at the time, and 75 Wall Street was one of eight new office buildings in the area with available space. 75 Wall Street's development involved a three-month-long archeological study of the site, though construction proceeded as scheduled. Items excavated from the site included a
crock with the marking "C. Crolius"; the crock was linked to
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius (bapt. October 30, 1774 – October 3, 1843) was an American businessman and politician.
Life
Born in New York City, Colony of New York, Clarkson Crolius was the son of Johannes (John) Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His ...
, a leader of the
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
political machine.
London & Leeds donated over 250,000 historical artifacts to the
South Street Seaport
The South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, centered where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District, in Lower Manhattan. The Seaport is a designated historic district ...
Museum, many of which came from the 75 Wall Street excavation.
Barclays had opened its headquarters by early 1987. At the time, Barclays was planning to expand its operations within the United States. ''The Christian Science Monitor'' wrote that the lobby was filled with scaffolding, and "a vacant elevator shaft and artless walls further attest that Barclays Bank's new granite-and-brass North American headquarters is not nearly complete." London & Leeds was still fitting out the building in mid-1988. The building's completion coincided with a decline in New York City's office market. Additionally, Barclays decided to involve itself in
wholesale
Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. In ...
business and
capital markets rather than expand its American operations, as had been the bank's intention when 75 Wall Street was completed. By 1989, Barclays was looking to relocate 1,000 employees from 75 Wall Street to
MetroTech Center in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
News service
Knight Ridder occupied up to in the building before moving to the
World Financial Center in 1996.
Dresdner Bank leased of space in 1994 and opened a fixed-income trading floor at 75 Wall Street the next year.
J.P. Morgan & Co. also leased space there during the late 1990s. Barclays itself only occupied at 75 Wall Street by 1997. A bomb detonated outside the building in 2000, breaking some windows, though nobody was hurt. Following the nearby
collapse of the World Trade Center
The collapse of the World Trade Center occurred during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers were struck by two hijacked commercial airliners. One World Trade Center (WTC 1, or the North Tower) was hit at 8:46&nb ...
during the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
in 2001, Dresdner Bank's successor
Dresdner Kleinwort
Kleinwort Hambros is a private bank owned by Société Générale that offers financial services from offices throughout the United Kingdom and Channel Islands. Kleinwort Hambros focuses on private banking, providing a range of services for high ...
moved out of 75 Wall Street, and Barclay also contemplated moving its offices. Despite vacating the building, Dresdner continued to lease 12 stories, and the
Fireman's Fund Insurance Company
Fireman's Fund Insurance Company was an insurance company based in Petaluma, California which provided personal and commercial property and casualty insurance products in the United States.
The company was a principal U.S. subsidiary of Allian ...
held a lease on three stories.
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...
purchased the building from Barclays in 2005 and subsequently bought out these two leases.
Hotel and condominium use
Conversion and 2010s operation
The Hakimian Organization and Peykar Brothers Realty purchased 75 Wall Street from JPMorgan Chase for $185 million in December 2005.
By then, many office buildings in the Financial District were being turned into
residential condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owne ...
s,
and several hotels were also being built in the neighborhood.
Rex Hakimian said that while the average office rent in the area was per month, condominium apartments often sold for more than .
Hakimian said 75 Wall Street's small floor plates and tall ceilings made the building seem "as if it was built to be converted".
The building was
rezoned for residential and commercial use.
Over three years, the Hakimian Organization converted 75 Wall Street into a mixed-use structure with condominiums on its upper floors and a hotel below.
SLCE Architects
SLCE Architects is an American architecture firm which provides architectural services in both the public and private sector. Between 2010 and 2015, the firm received the most commissions for residential developments in New York City. The firm is ...
designed the conversion,
and
Hyatt agreed to operate the hotel as one of the first hotels in its Andaz chain. The project was to contain about 250 hotel rooms and 350 apartments.
A tenant amenity area was placed on the rooftop, with a lounge, hot tub, small beach, solarium, and hammocks. Condo residents could also pay
a la carte
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...
for service from the hotel's
housekeeping
Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running an organised physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as tidying, cleaning, cooking, routine maintenance, shopping, ...
staff.
Interior designer
David Rockwell
David Rockwell (born July 25, 1956) is an American architect and designer. He is the founder and president of Rockwell Group, a 250-person cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York City with satellite offices in Madrid ...
, one of the architects involved in the project, included a private
screening room in the condo section of the building. Rockwell designed four model apartments for prospective buyers, which the Hakimian Group presented at a party in September 2007. Rockwell also designed the hotel,
with rooms averaging .
The condominium portion of the building opened in 2009 with 346 residential units.
Hakimian allowed residents to sublease their condos for periods of as little as three months, which made the building appealing to buyers from around the world.
The hotel portion opened as Andaz Wall Street in January 2010,
and a restaurant named Wall & Water also opened within the ground floor. Condo sales at 75 Wall Street lagged in the wake of the
late-2000s financial crisis, and only 137 of the units were in contract or had been sold by July 2010. As a result,
Bayerische Landesbank
Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB; Bavarian State Bank) is a publicly regulated bank based in Munich, Germany and one of the six Landesbanken. It is 75% owned by the Free State of Bavaria (indirectly via BayernLB Holding AG) and 25% owned by the ''S ...
, which had given the developers a $263 million loan for the building's renovation, extended the term of the loan by two years. Hakimian
refinanced existing debt on the hotel with
Annaly Capital Management
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. is one of the largest mortgage real estate investment trusts. It is organized in Maryland with its principal office in New York City.
The company borrows money, primarily via short term repurchase agreements, and ...
in 2017.
The hotel renovated its rooms in 2019.
COVID-19 pandemic
The hotel suspended operations in 2020 amid citywide shutdowns during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
In March 2020, Hakimian listed the hotel portion for sale for $125 million, but failed to make a sale; a new owner could convert the hotel back to office space, which before the pandemic had seen more steady demand than hotel rooms in New York City.
According to court papers, only $20,000 remained in the hotel's operating account by April 2020.
Hakimian entered into a
forbearance
Forbearance, in the context of a mortgage process, is a special agreement between the lender and the borrower to delay a foreclosure. The literal meaning of forbearance is "holding back". This is also referred to as mortgage moratorium.
Applica ...
agreement with Annaly in June 2020, extending the due date of its loan to December. According to court documents, Hakimian failed to pay off the loan or make interest payments.
In January 2022, Hakimian sold the hotel portion of the building to Navika Capital for $84.7 million after Annaly attempted to
foreclose
Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan.
Formally, a mort ...
on the building after nonpayment of a $55 million loan.
Hakimian retains ownership of the condo section of the building.
The hotel
rebranded
Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...
and reopened as Hyatt Centric Wall Street New York on January 26. Vishal Kotahwala, Executive Partner of Navika, said that "Centric is a better brand for the current market."
References
{{Hotels in New York City
1987 establishments in New York City
2010 establishments in New York City
2022 establishments in New York City
Barclays
Financial District, Manhattan
Hotels established in 2010
Hotels established in 2022
Hotels in Manhattan
Office buildings completed in 1987
Wall Street