Sale of Former Donnell Library Is Back on Track (original) (raw)

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times The Donnell Library, at 20 West 53rd Street, closed last year.

Updated, 6:26 p.m. | The sale of the Donnell Library — a popular Midtown branch of the New York Public Library that was known for its rich holdings of movies, music, foreign language materials and children’s books until it closed last year to make way for a luxury hotel — is back on track.

The New York Public Library shut the Donnell branch, which opened in October 1955, last August as part of a deal announced in November 2007 to sell the building to Orient-Express Hotels for $59 million. The five-story building was to be razed to make way for an 11-story hotel, but a new library branch was to occupy space on the first floor and in the basement. The deal fell apart in February, however, with the hotel company backing out, citing the financial and credit crises.

On Thursday, the library said that the hotel chain had “renewed” its commitment to purchase the building, at 20 West 53rd Street, and that the purchase was now scheduled for closing in June 2011. The deal was originally to close in November 2008. When that deadline came, the library and hotel chain negotiated an extension to August 2009, but then the hotel chain suspended payments in February of this year.

“The agreement reaffirms the $59 million purchase price and provides for interim payments and collateral by Orient-Express to secure the company’s commitments to the library, which include a state-of-the-art new library branch within five years,” Heidi Singer, a library spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail message on Thursday. “Orient-Express and the New York Public Library initially agreed on the sale of the property in November 2007, but in February 2009 the hotel company suspended payments because of economic conditions. Today’s agreement ensures the building purchase will go forward and Donnell users will have a modern new library.”

The resumption of the sale is unlikely to mollify former patrons of the library, who have lambasted the sale and urged the library system to reopen Donnell. RitaSue Siegel, an advocate for Donnell, called the resumption of the sale “ridiculous” in a phone interview.

Officials at the New York Public Library have stood their ground, saying the 1955 library was crumbling and in dire need of repairs that the library system could not afford.