The Times Square Edition Hotel is bringing the lap of luxury into the district once better known for its lap dancing.
The 43-story hotel tower at 701 Seventh Ave., conceived by hotel developer impresario Ian Schrager — the co-creator of the legendary Studio 54 — opens Tuesday, and is poised to become a food destination as well as an A-list celeb magnet and performance space.
Performances broadcast from the hotel’s 5,000 square-foot cabaret space will be seen via a giant 24 million pixel, 18,000 LED billboard screen display around the base of the building.
“There is an authenticity theme that all of us wanted to bring to the hotel to reflect this tiny, compact neighborhood packed with culture and commerce,” one insider said. “It’s a cool blend and an authentic New York experience.”
The wow factor includes plans for top artists to stay in the penthouse suite, which has broadcast capability and a private roof terrace overlooking Times Square, while they perform at the cabaret.
Schrager collaborated with Marriott International on the project by Maefield Development.
All of the food and beverage is run by Michelin-starred chef John Fraser.
On Tuesday, the ninth-floor Terrace Restaurant and Outdoor Gardens, an all-day American brasserie, will be the first part of the hotel — seen to be the most extensive luxury development in Times Square in three decades — to open publicly.
That 14,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor space features appetizers like a bass crudo; mushroom carpaccio; and grilled octopus. Entrées include classics like broiled lobster; baked cauliflower parmesan; and marinated skirt steak along with “simply roasted” dishes. There’s also an imaginative crab fondue and sides like miso spinach with toasted hazelnuts.
Cocktails include Broadway Bound, with vodka, Ancho Reyes, passion fruit mustard and ginger beer.
The main dining room seats 85 people with another 30 at the bar. There’s also an outdoor restaurant bar with 65 seats and 54 more in additional terrace seating. The outdoor area is tempered by “fantasy” plants and light fixtures that create a shelter from outdoor elements to create a year-round experience.
There’s also a 5,800-square-foot beer garden, which seats around 70 people and holds up to 100, and an event deck overlooking Times Square. In addition, there’s a 10th-floor lobby bar and lounge with 50 seats inside, and terrace seating overlooking Times Square.
The 452 hotel rooms, which open to guests in March, have floor-to-ceiling windows and shades that block out the noise and lights of Times Square.
The fine dining restaurant, 701 West, will also open next month. It seats 55 people in the main dining area, decorated in a royal shade of blue, and 51 seats in the deep green bar room, along with a terrace that seats 60.
The pièce de résistance is the cabaret, which also opens next month, on the seventh floor.
The cabaret’s main dining room seats 120, with an additional 20 at the bar and 40 on the terrace, along with two private rooms that seat 30 people each and a “pre-function” area that holds 60 people for cocktails or 19 for a seated dinner.
It includes a broadcast control room “with a supercomputer that works with the high-resolution billboard performance broadcast and a content display suite,” a source said.
Acoustically, the source said, the performance space “is an artist’s fantasy, with state of the art technology and a venue with sex appeal that is all Ian’s design. It’s a great venue for artists and for the guests.”
The hotel design is ultra-Schrager, with lots of greenery — more than 3000 plants — and walls of striking black and white New York photographs from venerable New York photographers like Helen Levitt, who captured the essence of the city, and its people, from the 1930s through the 1990s.
The hotel also includes 76,000 square feet of retail space.
