Why you should experience Cassa Hotel Times Square in New York, NY.
Cassa Hotel Times Square is a residential-minded hotel where Hell's Kitchen's independent spirit, westward momentum, intimate streetscape and contemporary hospitality culture converge inside a compact 9th Avenue address.
Set along 9th Avenue near West 39th Street and just steps from Hudson Yards, the property grew from the long-delayed Galerie515 project, whose original Costas Kondylis scheme stalled after its concrete foundation had been poured and remained dormant until a new investment partnership revived development in 2012. Goldstein, Hill & West Architects subsequently carried the building to completion, while New Line Structures managed construction of the 164,965-square-foot reinforced-concrete project across 12 stories plus its roof and three bulkhead levels. Construction resumed in summer 2012 and reached completion in summer 2014 after $39 million in hard costs, creating a vertically layered property with hospitality space below 108 rental residences and a roof deck overlooking Manhattan's western skyline. Cassa Hotel Times Square consequently captures a particularly New York development story, transforming a recession-era construction site into an unusually compact combination of hotel and residential life on the rapidly changing western edge of Midtown.
What you should know about Cassa Hotel Times Square.
Cassa Hotel Times Square is best known for opening in October 2014 as an 86-room hotel occupying 38,385 square feet at 515 9th Avenue, with its first full year of operation producing 93.1 percent occupancy, an average daily rate of $226.82 and revenue per available room of $211.07. By June 2016, trailing occupancy had reached 95.2 percent, while the hotel component carried an appraised value of $47.3 million within a wider property appraised at $68.9 million, figures that reveal an unusually strong early operating performance for an independent Manhattan debut. The same complex incorporated 11,581 square feet of retail space and a 9,588-square-foot, 32-space subterranean parking component accessed from West 39th Street by car lift, placing several distinct commercial functions within the compact 9th Avenue footprint. A 2016 financing valued the hotel, retail and parking components against a $34.2 million mortgage, capturing Cassa at a moment when the newly opened property had already established itself within a competitive set spanning independent Manhattan hotels including the Mansfield, Sanctuary, Night, City Club, Room Mate Grace and Distrikt.
Bar Gonzo introduced the property's most ambitious cultural chapter in November 2017, occupying 4,000 square feet across two levels under chef and owner R.L. King, whose earlier kitchens included Gallow Green, The Heath, il Buco, Hundred Acres and Five Points. Designer Turjeman Jaakov drew inspiration from 1970s nightlife and writers including Hunter S. Thompson, George Plimpton and Ernest Hemingway, filling the interiors with saturated pink, green, blue and gold, marble, neon, midcentury furniture and a recurring peacock motif. A 40-seat Peacock Bar occupied the ground level, while a marble staircase climbed toward a raw bar, charcuterie station, tiki bar and all-season Cabana Veranda with 100 seats and capacity for 150, as beverage consultant Tim Cooper, known for Flatiron Lounge and Surf Lodge, developed the cocktail program. King moved across injera, French-bread pizza, cured meats, artisanal cheeses and the Latch Key Kid Pizza while Cooper built drinks around tiki influences and large-format punches, giving the hotel a flamboyant culinary character grounded in specific New York hospitality talent.
How to fold Cassa Hotel Times Square into your trip.
Cassa Hotel Times Square works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing exhibition architecture, naval history and experimental cultural design through the rapidly evolving western edge of Midtown.
Begin at Javits Center, where I.M. Pei & Partners' glass Crystal Palace opened in 1986 before a major expansion completed in 2021 added 1.2 million square feet, including 200,000 square feet of meeting space and a one-acre rooftop farm designed to produce as much as 40,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables annually. Continue to Intrepid Museum, founded after Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher established the Intrepid Museum Foundation in 1978 to save the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Intrepid from scrapping, culminating in its 1982 opening as the centerpiece of a collection whose ship had survived five kamikaze attacks and a torpedo strike during World War II before recovering the Mercury Aurora 7 capsule in 1962 and the first Gemini mission in 1965. Conclude at The Shed, where Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group designed an eight-level arts center that opened April 5, 2019 with a telescoping outer shell capable of rolling across rails to create the McCourt, a 17,000-square-foot space conceived for large-scale artistic production. The progression moves from Pei's exhibition architecture through the Fishers' preservation of a decorated aircraft carrier into Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group's mechanically reconfigurable arts building, revealing three generations of ambition along the West Side surrounding Cassa Hotel Times Square.
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