


The remote work real estate reckoning continues.
In a sign of the times, Midtown’s famed Rockefeller Center complex has struck a deal to fill former work spaces with overnight lodgings.
Aspen Hospitality will transform 10 floors of empty former offices above NBC’s “Today” show studios into the second location of its luxury hotel the Little Nell, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
The luxe 130-room lodging — the original location of which opened in Aspen, Colorado in 1989 — would be the first hotel in Rockefeller Center.
Although the 14-building complex currently has 93% of its office space leased, they’re only approximately half-filled on their busiest days, according to the outlet.
The plan, while now formally announced, requires the city’s blessing to move forward.
Although the real-estate development is revealing regarding the sorry situation many office landlords find themselves in, it is also the result of the fact that the Crown family, which owns Aspen Hospitality, also co-owns Rockefeller Center with developer Tishman Speyer.
The firms have been floating the idea of opening a Rock Center hotel since pre-pandemic, but were convinced by the rise of remote work to move forward with it, family member Paula Crown told the Journal.
The Little Nell’s new Manhattan location will target both tourists and corporate customers, Crown added, explaining that it will have “hybrid components” of both a business and a resort hotel.
Executives are hopeful that the Little Nell, alongside other recent cultural additions to the complex — including a roller-skating rink and fancy restaurants — will serve to bring back the very clients the hotel is catering itself to.
“If New Yorkers are excited about what’s going on at Rockefeller Center — the restaurants, the retail, the art, the arrival of a hotel — then they will want to have their office here, they’ll want to shop here, they’ll want to come here,” Rockefeller Center head and Tishman Speyer senior managing director EB Kelly told the Journal.