Former Chemist Club Building to become a boutique hotel.

Morris Moinian has announced that he has commenced development of the former Chemist Club Building, located at 50-54 East 41 st Street between Madison and Park avenues, into Manhattan's newest boutique hotel.

Moinian, 37, a New York-based real estate investor and developer, also owns Chattanooga Mfg. Company located at 1407 Broadway, which imports and manufactures women's fashions under the Jordan label.

He acquired the building - which was long unoccupied - in 1997 for $6 million.

The Chemist Club Building, which was purchased by the Chemist Club in 1909 for approximately $175,000, served as the home of that social club for over 80 years. During that time, the building housed bedrooms for its members and guests, meeting rooms and a large library, as well as a dining room and bar with a 30-foot ceiling and mezzanine. A grand circular marble staircase connected the first three floors, and the building contained ornate decorative plaster ceiling moldings and wall treatments throughout.

Moinian noted that one of the building's most distinctive and unique features was a third floor room which replicated a medieval alchemist's laboratory. "This room, which will become one of the hotel's guest suites, may perhaps be one of the most uniquely themed hotel suites in the world," he said.

The new hotel, as yet unnamed, will contain 108 luxury guest rooms and suites. Moinian said that due to his appreciation of the near landmark quality interior and exterior details and workmanship which are evident in the building, he will spend in excess of $1 million and will take painstaking efforts to attempt to save and restore as much of the building's architectural details as possible, notwithstanding the virtual total renovation of the existing shell.

In addition to the renovation of the existing building, a new four-story addition will be built, bringing the hotel to a total of 14 floors.

The hotel's amenities and services will include a fitness more, meeting/banquet rooms and room service. Targeting a sophisticated upscale business and entertainment clientele as its core customers, each guest room will be equipped with state-of-the-art high-speed direct Internet access.

[Incomplete Text From Original Publication] direct fax lines, multi-line phones and on-demand in-room video entertainment. Meeting rooms will have video teleconferencing capability.

A gourmet restaurant, and mezzanine lounge will occupy the former grand ballroom space, with its 30-foot-tall detailed plaster ceilings and its 10-foot ornate fireplace as its centerpiece. The restaurant has been leased to and will be operated by an experienced restaurant operator with the financial backing of a number of high-powered Wall Street investment brokerage executives.

Moinian said that the project's interior designer, Jeffrey Beers International, is combining the building's architectural grandeur with a crisp, chic, upscale and original design theme so as to make it "the place to be and to been seen in Manhattan."

Financing for the project, which will total approximately $30 million, has been provided by debis Financial Services, an affiliate of Daimler Chrysler A.G.M. Castedo & Associates of Manhattan is the architect. York Hunter, Inc., also of Manhattan, has been retained as construction manager. Allied Hospitality Inc., of Chicago, has been retained to manage the hotel.

Moinian intends to use his experience in both the fashion industry and in real estate development in both the design and operation of the hotel so as to position and differentiate it from other Manhattan boutique hotels.

Construction on the project has commenced and the hotel is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 1999.