DON’T look for Buddha Bar, the heavily hyped nightlife mecca planned for Chelsea Market, to open soon – if at all.
Work on the 12,000-square-foot David Rockwell-designed club has ground to a halt while frontman Raymond Visan looks for new investors to foot the bill for another $3 million to $4 million to get the place open.
Visan has also scrubbed plans entirely for a gigantic new restaurant on the west side of the popular market complex, bounded by Ninth and Tenth avenues and 15th and 16th streets.
Buddha Bar’s backstep is a rare setback for Chelsea Market, the former Nabisco factory that was turned into a gourmet shopping mecca by owners Irwin Cohen and the Angelo Gordon Co.
The market is home to specialty food shops and media outlets, including cable news channel NY1. Buddha Bar would make it a nightlife mecca as well.
Visan, who according to State Liquor Authority filings holds just 1 percent of Buddha Bar shares, is president of an investor group that includes backers from around the world.
He said from Paris yesterday that opening here, which was projected to be a $3 million job, will actually cost $6 million to $7 million.
“We have a few groups very interested,” Visan said. “We will open hopefully by the beginning of next year” – two and a half years after the plans were first reported in The Post.
Buddha Bar – spawn of the celebrity-studded Paris original – has missed several reported opening dates. Visan confirmed that the planned restaurant, Zuccabar, is dead. “We will not do it,” he said. That deal, first reported in The Post last summer, called for a 26,000-square-foot eatery on 10th Avenue.
Buddha Bar’s precise status at Chelsea Market was unclear. Asked whether he still had a lease, Visan said, “we still have it as of today. We are fighting for keeping it.
“We are also doing agreements with Chelsea Market to find time to raise the rest of the money to open it.” Irwin Cohen did not return repeated calls.
Rockwell said, “I hope [Visan] is able to continue, but it’s not active at the moment.”
*
Sheldon Solow has lost for good in his court battle with J.P. Morgan Chase, a former tenant at his 9 W. 57th St.
The state Appellate Division last week unanimously affirmed its earlier ruling in favor of Morgan. It also rejected Solow’s pitch to take the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.
Solow was pressing to collect $28 million from the bank for failing to restore its space in the tower, as its lease required, when the lease expired there four years ago.
J.P. Morgan blamed Solow’s “interference” for not getting the job done.
A lower court ruled for J.P. Morgan and was upheld by the Appellate Division last winter. Solow then asked an appellate panel either to hear new arguments or to allow him to take the case to the Court of Appeals.
J.P. Morgan’s lawyer, Richard C. Seltzer, called the appellate ruling “the final nail,” adding that Solow “has exhausted all avenues of appeal.”
Solow’s spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, said Solow had not seen the opinion and “until such time as he does he will reserve comment.”
*
Rebuild it and they will come. That’s the story at 40 W. 57th St., the 34-story Lefrak Organization-owned office tower in the midst of a $30 million capital improvement campaign.
In the latest deals, two major hedge funds – MHR Fund Management and Cantillon Capital Management – have signed for the entire 24,000-square-foot 24th floor. Asking rents are about $55 per square foot.
Howard Fiddle, leader of an Insignia/ESG team that represents the owners, noted that the leases follow on the heels of another hedge fund, Duquesne Capital Management, which recently took the 25th floor.
The upgrades – including a gleaming new facade, new HVAC system, new lobby and an upgraded retail arcade – helped lure Bank of America to the top eight floors last year, making it the tower’s largest tenant. Other office tenants include talent agency ICM, CBS Radio, Nautica and Wells Fargo Bank.
Five floors are still available. More space might come on line in 2007 if B of A moves to a new headquarters tower on 42nd Street.