MERRILL LYNCH

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Merrill Lynch is in talks once again to move its headquarters to one of Larry Silverstein’s towers at the World Trade Center site, with the Port Authority, which owns the site, expected to discuss the matter at today’s board meeting.  read more »

"Well, we won a small victory in the battle, but the fight isn't over yet," said Gregory Jones.

The lead organizer of the "Save The Hotel" campaign was reacting to news that financial giant Merrill Lynch will likely stay put in the city's financial district -- and not relocate to the site of his beloved Hotel Pennsylvania.

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The Wall Street Journal today reports that Merrill Lynch is likely to put off a decision on its headquarters location for at least another five years, as it is seeking a five-year lease renewal with current landlord Brookfield Properties at the World Financial Center downtown.

Such a move comes as good news for Brookfield, and seems to be not so great news for Larry Silverstein, who had hoped to lure the bank into his 175 Greenwich Street tower, a.k.a. 3 World Trade Center.  read more »

The New York Post's real-estate ranter Steve Cuozzo today ridicules the campaign to landmark endangered Hotel Pennsylvania, denouncing the old inn as "one of the gloomiest structures between the Battery and The Bronx."

The last-minute drive to save the hotel is flagrant anti-development obstructionism, under the thinnest possible mask of preservationism. It will likely go nowhere.  read more »

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Lower Manhattan could still keep its hold on financial giant Merrill Lynch, the Wall Street Journal reports today (at bottom), as “Downtown forces” recently went back to the bank with a revised package.

Just weeks ago, Merrill was very close to moving its headquarters to the site of Vornado Realty Trust’s Hotel Pennsylvania in midtown, just across Seventh Avenue from Penn Station. However, the move never came up at a meeting of the financial firm’s board, the Journal reports, which was too preoccupied with a write-down of $8.4 billion.

Since then, Merrill CEO Stanley O’Neal went into retirement – chief executives tend to weigh in heavily in a company’s location decision, real estate experts say – leaving open once again the question of where the bank will go when its lease at Brookfield Properties’ World Financial Center, just west of Ground Zero, expires in 2013.

Brookfield is pushing to expand its existing facility to accommodate Merrill, while Larry Silverstein is eager to bring the bank to one of his new World Trade Center towers.

Embattled Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal has stepped down, possibly throwing a wrench into the financial giant's almost-done deal to move uptown to Vornado's Hotel Pennsylvania site.

The relocation discussion "is being reopened," according to the Post's Steve Cuozzo, citing a well-placed source: "Not back to square one, but it's no longer the done deal people thought."

Activists hoping to preserve the decrepit-yet-historic McKim, Mead & White-designed hotel reacted to the news with a sigh of relief: "That was close!"

But is the big old inn really worth saving?

Tonight, a committee of local Community Board 5 will discuss the findings of its own two-person task force on the subject. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m., 227 West 27th Street, "A" Building, 8th floor, room A802.

In the meantime, The Observer posed the same question to Professor Mosette Broderick, director of NYU's urban design and architecture studies program and a reputed expert on the early work of hotel designers McKim, Mead & White.

"I am, in general, a pro-preservation person," Dr. Broderick replied via email, "but I am not willing to battle for the hotel. It is indeed seedy and I would assume has long ago lost any of the richness it once might have had within the walls....

"With so little interest in older buildings and more important ones needing to be saved, I would be willing to let this one go."

The Alliance for Downtown New York, the city's biggest business improvement district, just put out a statement by its chairman, Robert Douglass, on Merrill Lynch's pending plans to move from downtown to midtown.

While understandably heavy on the pleading, the statement also leans on the practical:

Utilizing the many financial incentives available to the company if they choose to locate in the World Trade Center site or another site Downtown... will save Merrill Lynch $600 million, while constructing a new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan could cost in excess of $600 million more than constructing a new one in Lower Manhattan. These two factors alone bring the additional cost of moving to Midtown to more than $1B, a figure that is hard to justify.

Full statement after the jump.  read more »

Beleaguered financial giant Merrill Lynch has "given every indication" that it intends to move from downtown to a new skyscraper where the historic Hotel Pennsylvania now stands at 401 Seventh Avenue, according to today's Times.

But! Preservationists hoping to save the once glamorous circa-1919 McKim, Mead & White-designed building from the wrecking ball, take heart. There's still a glimmer of hope for the old fleabag.

The Hotel Pennsylvania demolition project requires public approval, which could take a year, and would entail building over the railroad tracks that run beneath the hotel and pose engineering and security challenges.

A committee of the local Community Board 5 meets Tuesday to discuss whether the hotel merits consideration as a protected landmark. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m. on Oct. 30 at 227 West 27th Street, 8th floor, Rm A802.

Both the Times and Post are following up today on financial giant Merrill Lynch's potential interest in moving to the current Hotel Pennsylvania site.

According to the Post's Lois Weiss: "Merrill Lynch execs would prefer to be at Vornado Realty Trust's [hotel site]" as opposed to Larry Silverstein's forthcoming World Trade Center redevelopment.

"What Larry [Silverstein] has decked up financially is not superior to [Vornado's] Hotel Pennsylvania, and it's not big enough," our source said.

That statement somewhat contradicts what Merrill Lynch sources told Ms. Weiss just a month ago, when they complained the hotel property was "not attractive enough to employees."

"They can't make up their minds," hotel preservationist Gregory Jones told The Observer.  read more »