The main developer of ground zero, Larry Silverstein, is bringing a piece of the magic that broke records at the residential project 15 Central Park West to Lower Manhattan.

Today he will announce the hiring of architect Robert A.M. Stern to design a five-star hotel and luxury condominium tower at 99 Church St., just a block from the World Trade Center site. Mr. Stern is known most recently for his ultra-luxury limestone building at 15 Central Park West, developed by Zeckendorf Development LLC. A condominium there sold for $42 million to a former chief executive of Citigroup, Sanford Weill, a record for a single-unit condo.

“He’s a world-class architect who probably understands luxury residential better than anybody,” Mr. Silverstein said of Mr. Stern.
Mr. Silverstein bought the 11-story office building that presently sits at 99 Church St. from Moody’s in partnership with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System for $170 million in 2006.

The windows are already boarded up and demolition is expected to begin in mid-November and finish by May 2008. The new building, expected to be about 60 stories tall, will be completed and ready for occupancy in early 2011, Mr. Silverstein said.

The new building will fit directly into Mr. Silverstein’s constellation of projects near the World Trade Center. It is situated about a block away from the 52-story 7 World Trade Center and three planned towers along Church Street that will contain more than 6 million square feet of office space.

The building will “serve a duality of roles,” Mr. Silverstein said.

On the one hand, it will be interdependent with the tenants of the new World Trade Center buildings, providing hotel rooms, event space, and a restaurant for the thousands of business people expected to move into the area. On the other, the luxury condominiums will allow senior executives of those firms to live close to their work and with the amenities of more traditional neighborhoods of Manhattan, Mr. Silverstein said.

The development decision comes as 13 other hotel projects are under way or planned for sites below Canal Street, according to the Real Estate Board of New York’s August list of Manhattan hotel development. The projects include a new W Hotel below the World Trade Center site at 123 Washington St. by the Moinian Group and a Global Hyatt in the old headquarters of the JPMorgan building at 75 Wall St. One of the largest hotel developers in the city, McSam Hotel LLC, has two sites under construction and three more planned, the list shows.

The business improvement district for the area, Downtown Community Alliance, estimates that another 2,000 to 2,500 hotel rooms will be added to the existing 2,000 hotel rooms by 2010.

“There is a lot of hotel supply coming to that area,” the head of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman’s hospitality group, Mark Gordon, said. “By hiring a landmark architect, he is distinguishing it from the others.”

The plan is another step toward making downtown a “24/7 neighborhood,” the president of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, said.

“This area is kind of in between the financial district, the civic area, and TriBeCa,” she said. “It’s an area that needs more activation — more grocery stores and amenities for residents who live there.”

Mr. Menin said she hoped Mr. Silverstein would also open up space in the building for cultural events and performances.

“It’s going to be a new landmark in Lower Manhattan,” Mr. Stern, 68, who is the dean of the Yale University School of Architecture, said. He also designed the Westminster in Chelsea, as well as Tribeca Park and Tribeca Green.

Most of the design elements for 99 Church St. are under development, he said, but there are plans for event space, a high-end restaurant, a health club, and a public plaza between it and the Woolworth building.

“This is a critical moment in the evolution of New York and Lower Manhattan in general,” Mr. Stern said. “Everybody involved wants to make this a really important building.”

By May of next year, demolition will be finished and foundation work will start in June. The general contractor will be Tishman Construction Corp., which also built 7 World Trade Center.