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The 106 year old landmark hotel building is currently undergoing renovations so that it can be restored as a hotel after more than thirty years of neglect.
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The grand reopening of the Hotel Bossert, now owned by David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity and once known as the Waldorf Astoria of Brooklyn, has been delayed for until next year, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. The reason for the delay is that the owner has not yet retained the services of a hotel operator.
The family owned Clipper Equity told the paper, “Clipper Equity is excited to open a fully renovated and modernized, world-class hotel in Brooklyn Heights by early next year.” The work, which began in 2013, was originally supposed to be completed this year.
The hotel is currently under renovations and when it re-opens it will have 280 rooms and a rooftop restaurant.
The Bossert was acquired by Bistricer, together with fellow developer Joseph Chetrit, for $81 million, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses who had owned it since 1988. That organization did not operate the property as a hotel, but as lodging for their faithful who were visiting New York.
When acquired by the Jehovah’s witnesses, the property was reduced to such a state of disrepair that it could not be used as a hotel. At the end of 2013, Clipper received a new certificate of occupancy that allowed it to restore the Bossert as a hotel.
Located at 98 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, the hotel was built in 1908 and named for its builder, Louis Bossert. Originally intended as an apartment hotel, it boasts an Italian Renaissance Revival-style exterior.
Several Brooklyn Dodgers baseball players made it their home in the 1950s, and when the team won its only World Series championship in franchise history, in 1955, a celebration party was held in the hotel’s lobby.
A local preservation commission recently approved a new awning for the landmark building. Its red awning will be replaced with a new one, made of black steel and a glass top. It will have logos made of the initials HB.
Based in Brooklyn, Clipper Equity LLC is a partnership led by David Bistricer and Sam Levinson. It currently holds nine different properties throughout New York City.
David Bistricer is a New York based real estate developer and the founder and principal of Clipper Equity. Born in 1949, in Brussels, Belgium, to an Orthodox Jewish family of Holocaust survivors. His family came to America in 1951, and eventually founded the real estate business that Bistricer now runs.
He has five children, lives in Borough Park, Brooklyn with his wife Esther, is orthodox and is known for supporting yeshivas.
