A rendering of the Cachet Boutique New York Hotel that will include a new Playboy Club.

NEW YORK CITY—A $30.4-million financing deal has closed for the rebranding of the Out Hotel in Midtown. The purchase will foster the rebranding of the hotel into the future Cachet Boutique New York Hotel this spring and the return after more than three decades of the Playboy Club to New York City.

Silver Arch Capital Partners reports borrower Merchants Hospitality, Inc., has entered a partnership with hotel and restaurant branding company China-based Cachet Hospitality Group to transform the 105-room, three-story Out Hotel located in Hell's Kitchen into the future Cachet Boutique New York hotel. Also, Playboy Enterprises, Inc. has partnered with global hotel entity Cachet to construct a Playboy Club franchise location on the property's ground floor.

The Carlton Group was the broker in the transaction. Carlton Group chairman Howard Michaels and managing director Steven Weiss represented Merchants Hospitality, which is headquartered in New York City. Matt Cole, senior managing director with Silver Arch Partners, says the firm brought in a strategic financial partner that helped finance the transaction. Silver Arch Capital Partners is a national private lender headquartered in Hackensack, NJ. Carlton Group's Weiss says the leasehold first mortgage financing also included a $5-million renovation component.

The Playboy Club at the Cachet hotel will include a lounge bar, full-service dining room, game room and retail shop and the return to Manhattan of the iconic Playboy Bunnies. The original Playboy Club in Manhattan opened in 1962 at 59th street between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue and closed in 1986. Silver Arch's Cole estimates the Playboy Club space at the Cachet Boutique New York Hotel will be around 11,000 square feet. The new Playboy Club is expected to open this year.

Amenities at the newly rebranded hotel located on West 42nd Street between 10th and 11th avenues will include expansive personal wellness facilities, such as an open-air Zen garden and an outdoor spa and Jacuzzi. A central feature of the hotel, coined “the Great Lawn” will include a 2,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor wine bar and meeting and event space, including fire pits. A rustic Eden restaurant will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Cole notes that the transaction was complicated but in the end fostered the entrance of the Cachet hotel brand, which is very well established in Asia, into the New York City hotel market. The property in the heart of the Theater District is close to the Javits Center, major transportation and walking distance to Times Square and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, he adds.

“We think they (Merchants Hospitality) have put together a great group and a great plan,” he adds.

New York

“We think they (Merchants Hospitality) have put together a great group and a great plan,” he adds.

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Financing Deal Facilitates Hotel Rebranding, 'Bunnies' Return to NYC

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