Beatrice, 105 West 29th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 105 West 29th Street by Carter Horsley

This impressive, 53-story slab tower at 105 West 29th Street is one of the city's most attractive and dazzling mixed-use skyscrapers.

The lower 24-floors are a 290-room Eventi Hotel operated by the Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and floors 25 though 53 house 302 rental apartments in a section of the building known as "The Beatrice."

The residential section of the building has its own lobby.

The tower was built by J. D. Carlisle whose other projects in Manhattan include Morton Square in the West Village, the Centria on West 48th Street and the Cielo on York Avenue and 83rd Street.

Perkins Eastman was the architectural firm for the project. Its other projects in the city include the Cielo, Jade at 16 West 19th Street and 303 East 33rd Street, all of which are in Manhattan; a 7-story residential building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and Avalon Riverview and Avalon Riverview North in Long Island City.

Philip Koether Architects did the building's interiors.

The building can stage nightly light displays with colored LEDs on its second, third and fourth floors facing the avenue.

The building is also notable for its unusual fenestration pattern. The broad base has windows of two widths. The hotel portion of the tower has an alternating pattern of two and three stories with different window patterns. The apartment top of the building has a consistent horizontal fenestration pattern somewhat like the Secretariat Building at the United Nations.

The narrow south end of the building, which is also known as 100-108 West 30th Street, is divided by two thin "fins" that give the building added visual interest. It is at the northern end of the phalanx of tall apartment towers that replaced the city's "flower district" north of 24th Street on the Avenue of the Americas as a result of a rezoning at the end of the 20th Century.

The building, which has four levels of parking, has a large, two step-up, landscaped plaza on 29th Street with a 20-foot-high media screen and a "food court" on its western side.

The building's 53rd floor is a lounge with a fireplace and kitchen and roof deck for the residents of the apartments. The residential portion of the building has a doorman, a concierge and valet and maid and floral services.

The apartments have granite kitchen countertops and porcelain floors and washers and dryers.

The hotel's lobby, which is on the avenue, has a ceiling painting and very tall, perforated decorative screens. The hotel's entrance has a large marquee on which its name is embossed.