Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture + Design recently won an international design competition sponsored by the project’s developer with this gorgeous rendering of the 244-room, 440-foot high, 3-tower LEED Platinum hotel in the heart of Williamsburg’s Southside neighborhood. For years dominated by Peter Lugar’s, the historical Williamsburg Savings Bank and hipster-friendly restaurants such as Marlowe and Sons, this southerly neighborhood off-shoot of the JMZ Marcy stop is sure to see a continued reawakening.

While Property owner  Juan Figueroa, has stated  on Nov. 7th that he does not yet have the financing to move the project forward, Hotel News Resource recently quoted Carolina Botero, a designer at Oppenheim Architecture + Design who predicted that the development will be completed by 2015.  According to the hotel industry website, key sustainability features will include “vertical access wind turbines, green roof, rainwater harvesting and reuse, gray water treatment and reuse, high-performance glazing, and geothermal and solar power.”

It’s always good to keep handy what Sam Sifton has to say about a particular establishment before waltzing in.
Presenting his top 10 favorite new restaurants for 2011.

10. DANJI 346 West 52nd Street, Midtown; (212) 586-2880
9. RED ROOSTER HARLEM 310 Lenox Avenue (125th Street), Harlem; (212) 792-9001

8. TERTULIA 359 Avenue of the Americas (West Fourth Street), Greenwich Village; (646) 559-9909

7. HUNAN KITCHEN OF GRAND SICHUAN 42-47 Main Street (Franklin Avenue), Flushing, Queens; (718) 888-0553

6. EMPELLÓN 230 West Fourth Street (Seventh Avenue South), Greenwich Village; (212) 367-0999

5. M. WELLS (Long Island City – closed due to rent dispute)

4. CIANO 45 East 22nd Street, Flatiron district; (212) 982-8422

3. THE JOHN DORY OYSTER BAR 1196 Broadway (29th Street), the Ace Hotel, Chelsea; (212) 792-9000

2. BOULUD SUD 20 West 64th Street, Upper West Side; (212) 595-1313

1. THE DUTCH 31 Sullivan Street (Spring Street), SoHo; (212) 677-6200

About The Dutch, food critic Sam Sifton writes on Dec. 27th in the NYTimes, “This Andrew Carmellini guy is some cook..in a restaurant filled with New Yorkers pleased to be New Yorkers, eating in a New York restaurant, in SoHo in 2011. The Dutch, ladies and gentlemen, is my restaurant of the year.”

We love this gorgeous design by Eva Franco, which was just that – a design (sample 1231), until readers of ModCloth picked it via the website’s “Be the Buyer” series.  Now we hear it’s in production with heavy demand and likely to sell out rather quickly.  Keep track of this and other possible designs here.