The Chelsea Hotel to Become a Condotel

Sid stabbed Nancy there. Mark Twain, Jimi Hendrix, Dylan Thomas and William Burroughs slept there. Soon you’ll be able to buy a condo there – or just rent a room for the night.

A troika of hoteliers – BD Hotels’ Richard Born and Ira Drukier, along with frequent collaborator Sean MacPherson – have purchased the landmark Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street for $250 million, with plans to turn it into a hotel with condo apartments, the Real Deal reports.

“This is restoring a great iconic property in the city of New York,” Born says. “We’re dealing with a monumental city landmark.” He did not specify how many hotel rooms and how many condo apartments the renovated condotel will contain. Renovations are expected to be complete in 2018.

The building, with its trademark wrought-iron balconies and red-brick facade, has changed hands several times in recent years, and there have been bitter disputes between tenants, managers and owners since long-time manager Stanley Bard was pushed out in 2007.

Born wants to say goodbye to all that. “We believe we’ve made peace with virtually every tenant,” he tells the Real Deal. “There are maybe two or three tenants who are still having issues.”