West Village Luxury Hotel Is Falling Apart: Report

WEST VILLAGE, NY — The Standard Hotel overlooking the High Line is quite literally falling apart, according to a recent report from Curbed NY.

If you frequent the High Line to any extent, you'd have noticed the scaffolding that surrounds the boutique hotel in the West Village at 848 Washington Street.

What you might not have known, is the scaffolding first went up after a piece of cement and fiberglass paneling went crashing down last January from the 12th story of the hotel onto the roof of an adjacent building.

The owners of the hotel subsequently brought in an architecture firm to assess the facade, which is covered in the same panels.

The inspectors found that many of the gray panels on the outside of the hotel "were improperly installed and at risk of falling off," according to Curbed NY.

Here's how Curbed's Caroline Spivack explains the panel's issues:

"The problem lies in the rivets that attach the skin to the building, which was designed by Ennead Architects and opened to much fanfare in 2009. Some rivets were driven into too-large holes; others weren’t driven deep enough; some panels also didn’t have enough of them. The piece that flew off last winter was likely installed without an expansion gap, so the panel couldn’t move as it should with the heat and cold."

Pavarini McGovern LLC, the general contractor that oversaw the construction of the building, did not respond to Curbed's request for comment.

Engineers from the city now say that it will take many months to fix the improperly installed panels.

It's the latest in a very difficult period for the Standard Hotel, which currently owes at least $187 million to bondholders after it stopped paying its mortgage during the pandemic.

You can read the full story on Curbed's website.