With hotel plan, Signature now set for 65 stories
Nashville Business Journal - 8:42 AM CDT Mondayby Janel WatsonNashville Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville...tml?from_rss=1
Developer Tony Giarratana has added 10 floors of hotel space to his plan for Signature Tower, a move that will make the project taller than New York City's Chrysler Building.
The move raises Signature's height to 1,047 feet and its price tag by more than a third to $275 million. The hotel will have a separate entrance from the residential component and its amenities, which will include a spa, will take up the first three floors of the tower.
Giarratana says he does not yet have an agreement with a hotel operator, but expects to ink one this summer. He says it will be a high-end facility that will draw its share of celebrities.
Giarratana's news comes a week after Alex Palmer announced that he had signed a deal with InterContinental Hotels Group for a hotel that will anchor his $250 million West End Summit project.
Giarratana made his announcement at a reception Saturday night for the 730 people who have registered as interested buyers. Attendees also got a first look at the newest model of the structure as well as marketing materials detailing the layout of each residential floor.
The model and information were made public on Sunday during the 2006 Louisiana-Pacific Live It Up! Downtown Home Tour.
Last November, when Giarratana and Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell announced the approval of a tax-increment financing plan for Signature, plans called for it to house about 500 residential units on 55 floors, 50,000 square feet of street-level retail space and a seven-story parking garage below ground.
Signature's condo count is now 400, which includes 11 units of two-story townhomes. The smallest unit is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit measuring 1,100 square feet. The largest will be 6,000-square-foot custom-designed units that will take up an entire floor on the top six levels.
Giarratana says adding hotel space will not affect the TIF because the hotel will be financed separately. And since the project is in the commercial core zoning district, where there are no height restrictions, no additional approvals were needed to make the addition.
When he first unveiled plans for Signature in 2004, Giarratana was looking to make the tower a mix of hotel, office and residential space. But he says a hotel deal fell through soon after, leading Giarratana to focus on housing alone.
Giarratana says he refocused on the hotel component two months ago because of the synergy between a high-end hotel and Signature's luxury condos. For instance, the hotel housekeeping staff could service the residential units between check-in and check-out times.
Reservations on the units will kick off in conjunction with the 65th Iroquois Steeplechase on May 13. Giarratana is the sole developer of the project and his Giarratana Realty affiliate is the exclusive sales agent. The architect on the project is Atlanta-based Smallwood Reynolds Stewart Stewart & Associates Inc.
jwatson@bizjournals.com, 615-248-2222 ext. 115
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