Stephen B Jacobs Group Architects and Planners

One of New York’s largest architectural firms specializing in architectural, planning, preservation, programming, interiors, and consultative services.

STEPHENBJACOBSGROUPPC

Architects and Planners

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Founded in 1967 by architect Stephen Jacobs, FAIA, The Stephen B. Jacobs Group Architects and Planners, P.C. boasts a reputation for high design, unusually strong technical knowledge and outstanding service to its clients, most of whom, in 2007, are hoteliers or residential developers. In conjunction with affiliate Andi Pepper Interior Design, the SBG Group Architects and Planners prides itself on designing buildings that evolve hand-in-hand with their interior program. The SBJ Group's architecture is unusually functional, efficient and beautiful.

A core belief at Stephen Jacobs Architects is that design excellence, combined with the highest level of technical know-how, will result in superior buildings, and experience has borne this out over years of developing architectural solutions for preserving old buildings as well as fashioning new ones. Concurrently, Stephen Jacobs and the staff have gained an exceptional understanding of the total development process, from the real estate, economic, design, construction and marketing viewpoints.

In the last 40 years, Stephen Jacobs and the firm have designed a wide range of projects and building types including high rise condominiums, international hotels, boutique hotels, office buildings and adaptive re-use and preservation work. The quality of the firm’s work has earned the Stephen Jacobs Group Architects and Planners numerous local and national awards for design excellence; SBJ Group’s work has been published in dozens of architectural and design periodicals and is often covered in the real estate press.

Architect Stephen Jacobs’s first hotel design was the conversion of the old Shelton Hotel into the Halloran House. Stephen Jacobs also renovated the Gotham Hotel on 55th and 5th Avenue (currently the Peninsula Hotel), and designed The Reach in Key West Florida.

Starting in the mid-90’s, Stephen B. Jacobs and Andi Pepper have become one of the most sought-after teams in hospitality. Their super-hip designs for The Library and Giraffe Hotels, followed by the stunning success of the Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District in New York, has led to tremendous recognition in the national press, as well as to more commissions throughout North America.

Stephen B Jacobs Architects are currently working on sister hotels for the Gansevoort in South Beach, Florida and downtown Los Angeles, as well as a second New York Gansevoort located in midtown Manhattan. Additionally, they are currently designing new boutique hotels in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Montreal, Quebec.

Stephen Jacobs Group Architects: Hospitality Projects

	Hotel Gansevoort
	Manhattan, New York. 2004
This new hotel is a freestanding building of striking zinc-colored metal panels, glass-sheathed Juliet balconies and projecting bay windows that enliven the modern exterior while forming the focal point of guest room interiors. Lighting will play an important role in all areas of the hotel, from lobby ceiling lights which move up and down to create moods that vary with the time of day, to computer-controlled lights behind the glass walls of the mezzanine which effect choreographed color change and colored-glass bathroom doors illuminated from within. Designed to complement the area's stylish restaurants and boutiques, the hotel's ground floor entrance on cobble-stoned Ninth Avenue features internally illuminated glass columns and a 14-foot high revolving door. The glass columns, with their ever-changing colors, will create the illusion that the building is supported by light. Recalling the canopies of early 20th century meat-packing buildings, the hotel's canopy wraps around the corner of Ninth Avenue and 13th Street. The Hotel Gansevoort's rooftop design will feature a contemporary roof garden and hospitality suite with soaring 20-foot ceilings offering breathtaking city views in three directions. A 45-foot, year-round outdoor swimming pool with underwater music will anchor the roof's other side. The Hotel Gansevoort will have 187 guest rooms, including 20 corner suites. All guestrooms have nine-foot ceilings and feature bay windows that lend themselves to inspired interior room configurations and include seating areas within the curve of the window. One-third of the guest rooms will have balconies and two corner suites on each floor will have a living room and bedroom, with an available adjoining guest room.

	Gansevoort South
	Miami Beach, Florida. In Progress
This project involves the renovation of over 900,000 s.f. of an existing beachfront suite hotel property and the creation of a new development that will consist of 306 condominium units and 317 boutique hotel units. The project also includes creating hotel amenities such as new rooftop pools with a bar and cabanas, the ground floor development of the hotel lobby, a conference center and retail spaces.

	Library Hotel
	Manhattan, New York. 2000
Adaptive reuse of a twelve-story, obsolete office building originally constructed in 1912. The building is unusual since it is 12-stories high and only twenty-five feet wide. The facade was constructed in a gothic revival style, predominantly of tapestry brick and terracotta. Its most distinctive feature is a five-foot deep, copper-clad bay window that projects onto the Madison Avenue setback. Each guestroom carries an individual theme within its floor "concept". For instance, rooms on the seventh floor ("The Arts") focus on the performing arts, fashion design, photography, sculpture, graphic arts and architecture. The theme of each floor is reflected in details such as the artwork, as well as the shelved books available for guests to enjoy during their stay.

	Tcheque Hotel
	Montreal, Quebec. In Progress
New Hotel in Montreal, Canada

	The Providence Grand Hotel
	Providence, Rhode Island. 1999

	Ramada Plaza at LaGuardia Airport
	Queens, New York.

Stephen Jacobs Group Architects: Residential Projects

	325 Fifth Avenue
	Manhattan, New York. 2005
325 Fifth Avenue is a new 41-story luxury condominium between East 32nd and 33rd Streets, across from the Empire State Building. Designed jointly with Andi Pepper Interior Design, “325 Fifth” is a new landmark on the Manhattan skyline. The project was conceived as a classic urban skyscraper: a tower defined by a dynamic play of setbacks as it rises above its neighbors, articulated, and gleaming with a shimmering glass curtain wall. The interior organization dictated the form of the building. The glass curtain wall assembly incorporates opaque, translucent and transparent glass panels, programmed by interior function. The first two floors have a more traditional street front presence with a limestone facing, while the top five floors are formed by voluntary setbacks to allow the duplex penthouses to have ample terrace space. The building will have 250 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The 2nd floor is devoted to amenities such as a lounge, a screening room, children’s playroom, outdoor terrace and a fitness center with sauna and indoor pool. Residents will also have access to a landscaped plaza, below grade parking and private storage. The light-washed lobby welcomes residents with a bamboo forest, waterfall and landscaped courtyard garden.

	The Edge
	Brooklyn, New York. In Progress
The Edge, a new mixed use development on the Brooklyn Waterfront in the newly rezoned neighborhood of Williamsburg, will consist of four buildings, including a 39 story residential tower with 515 market rate apartments, a 29 story residential tower, with 323 market rate apartments, and two mid-rise buildings containing 346 affordable housing units. In total, The Edge will include over 1.3 million gsf, with 60,000 sf of retail, parking for 1,000 vehicles, and a waterfront esplanade, complete with a water taxi pier. Please visit The Edge website for further information.

	Chatham 44
	Manhattan, New York. In Progress
The Please visit Chatham 44 website for further information.

	St. Charles Condominium
	Manhattan, New York. 1994

Stephen Jacobs Group Architects: Preservation and Reuse Projects

	Harrisburg Hotel
	Harrisburg, PA. In Progress
This 88-room hotel in Harrisburg, PA, is in a 1904, Neoclassical building that had originally been the Masonic Temple. The new scheme adds two and a half stories via a contemporary glass and steel mansard roof. The SBJ Group will restore the historic façade, and will add glass canopies over the entrances; both the roof and doorways will be decoratively lit. The interiors will be fully renovated and designed by Andi Pepper Interior Design. The program includes guest registration, lobby, breakfast area, bar and meeting rooms, additional suites, meeting rooms convertible to banquet facilities, and guest rooms and suites. A rooftop bar with 360° views of the city is a signature element of the design. The interior design is chic and modern. All guestrooms will have plasma TV’s, mini-bars and wireless. Bathrooms are luxurious, with rich finishes, pulsating showerheads, extra large beds, fine Egyptian cotton linens and custom lighting and fixtures. The owner, Jules Patt, anticipates that the new hotel and its restaurant will be among the most sophisticated spaces in the city, where business people, state legislators, government employees and the city’s art and design community will meet and mingle.

	130 Barrow Street
	Manhattan, New York. 1983
Conversion of former truck garage into residential apartments, with new atrium and 68 apartment units including duplex units and commercial space.

	Cast Iron Building
	Manhattan, New York. 1974
New Hotel in Montreal, Canada

Stephen Jacobs Group Architects: Public and Commercial Projects

	Little Camp Memorial at Buchenwald
	Weimar, Germany. 2002
This project consisted of a memorial for the site of the "Little Camp" of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, the site of the worst atrocities at Buchenwald. The memorial is intended to create a space for quiet contemplation, pensiveness and commemoration. The monument consists of a confined, rectangular 'room' defined by rough textured limestone walls to reflect the harshness of life in the camp. Visitors descend into the monument via a diagonal ramp which is an intentional departure from the ridged geometry of the extant foundations. Markers along the perimeter of the walls denote the deportation places of the camp's inmates. A recess in the walls contains a living tree growing out of an iron grate to symbolize the continuity of life after the pain and suffering inflicted on the site. The woods surrounding the site were purposefully left intact to signify forgetting and exclusion.

	Long Island City Courthouse
	Queens, New York. 2007
The firm completed two major renovation projects at the landmarked 1907 Long Island City Courthouse in Queens, New York. The first project entailed the interior renovation of 5,000 s.f. of space to create new courtroom space, Judge’s chambers and office space for the District Attorney’s Office. The other project entails a complete exterior restoration of the exterior envelope of the building including masonry repointing and replacement of skylights. Also included is the interior restoration of the Third Floor courtroom, a grand double-height space. This scope includes restoration of finishes, new furniture, restoration of finishes, and upgrade to NYC Department of Corrections spaces. This project was part of Architectural and Engineering Design Services and Construction Related Services for The City on New York in Connection with Historic Preservation, Conservation Requirements and Rehabilitation Projects at Various Sites in the Boroughs of The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.