Towering Hotel at Rockefeller Center Nears Completion

A hulking 33-story boutique hotel set right across from Rockefeller Center is nearing completion. Developed by the real estate behemoth Extell and designed by SLCE Architects, it is scheduled to start accepting guests by the end of the year.

The Kimpton Rockefeller Center is located at 32 W. 48th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and will extend to 456 feet in height, or roughly 33 stories. It’s set right across from a Nintendo store that’s part of Rockefeller Center proper, which is technically composed of 19 commercial buildings, a zigzagging chunk of West 47th Street to West 51 Street that does not include 32 W. 48th St.

A current view of the construction site reveals significant scaffolding blocking the front entrance’s exterior, although the hotel’s glass tower can be seen lunging skyward. The 47-50 St / Rockefeller subway station is located just down the block.

The hotel will contain over 530 guest rooms, according to the trade publication Lodging Magazine; there will also reportedly be two full-service restaurants, a lobby lounge, and a rooftop bar. Extell secured a $220-million loan in 2023 to fund the project, which will join two other Kimpton-brand hotels in the city, the Kimpton Theta and the Kimpton Eventi.

It seems that the hotel‘s developers are focusing on its commanding height. “Perfectly positioned at Rockefeller Center’s doorstep with a bird’s-eye view of the bustling plaza below, the 33-story design-forward hotel, developed by Extell, offers expansive, coveted views of the city skyline,” a description on Extell’s website notes.

In a piece last December, the pro-development blogYIMBY called the soon-to-open hotel “the 25th-tallest building on our year-end construction countdown.”

Kimpton, a San Francisco-based brand, was founded in 1981. In 2011, it maintained the largest portfolio of “boutique” hotels in the United States, and was bought by the British hospitality giant IHG Hotels and Resorts in 2014 for nearly half-a-billion dollars. There are 75 Kimpton hotels worldwide.

IGH has let Extell handle the aforementioned $220-million funding of the project, and will merely attach its brand. The 292-room Kimpton Eventi, which is located on Sixth Avenue and West 29th Street, was notably purchased by the asset management firm Blackstone for $175 million in January.

Extell, meanwhile, is well known for being the developer that helped bring into being the controversial set of super-skinny and super-tall Midtown towers known as “Billionaire’s Row.” They’ve also developed The Ariel at West 99th Street and Broadway, a pair of apartment buildings that are the tallest structures on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, as well as a skyscraper known as The Orion on West 42nd Street.

Extell is led by the Manhattan-born Gary Barnett, who briefly worked in the Belgian diamond trade before founding the company in 1989. When the Kimpton Rockefeller was initially announced last September, Extell executive Elysa Goldman said that the company would “bring our experience developing some of the best commercial hospitality and developments, as well as skyscrapers, to the new Kimpton Midtown NYC.”