Work Resumes at Sam Chang’s Delancey Holiday Inn

‘Tis the season for long-vacant project sites to reactivate.  In the last few months, various stalled developments across the Lower East Side returned to action. We saw it with the Allen Street Hotel growing like a weed at 139 Orchard, and are now seeing it with yet another friggin’ hotel.  That’s right, mega-developer Sam Chang is back in business at the corner of Suffolk and Delancey with his new Holiday Inn venture.

The corner parcel of 148-154 Delancey has actually been pretty busy of late.  In recent weeks, cement trucks, backhoes, bulldozers, and bendy cranes each made cameo appearances.  All in the name of underpinning and pouring a new foundation.  Once the job site reaches full bloom, it will likely rise a tad higher than the six stories previously reported.  A handful of recently-filed permits at the DOB suggest that the new Holiday Inn will boast eight stories.

Architect Gene Kaufman spoke candidly with the Real Deal on Monday and offered up some additional details.  He noted that Sam Chang is jumpstarting select dormant projects all over town, including the 134-room hotel at 150 Delancey, which hadn’t been active in over six months.  Yet plans for this particular development were reportedly scaled back to cut costs.  For example, reducing dining areas inside resulted in savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.