Ikea considers making modernist office building into a hotel
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A brutalist-style structure that was designed by famed architect Marcel Breuer and has sat vacant along Interstate 95 for over a decade may soon see new life as a hotel.
Swedish home furnishings giant Ikea, which owns the property, is seeking approval from New Haven’s City Plan Commission to repurpose the building as a 165-room hotel.
The concrete building is composed of two sections, with an office block elevated above the lower floors by massive pillars. It was built in the late 1960s as the headquarters for the Armstrong Rubber Co., which later solid it to the Pirelli tire company. After acquiring the property in 2003 Ikea built its outlet on an adjacent plot but it has hung a huge banner ad from its roof to advertise chairs or desks sold at the store.
In a letter to the planning commission, Ikea said the expectation is “that the building will become an attractive purchase opportunity as a hotel,” the New Haven Register reported . It said the plan would help meet the city’s need for new hotel rooms and rejuvenate an architecturally significant building at a gateway to the city centre.