Flea Market Hotel

Soho. Once the mecca of downtown cool is now more of a quaint outdoor mall with some nice restaurants and very nice housing. We're fine with that. But what about that weird flea market on the corner of Howard and Broadway, just one block north of Canal? It's one of the few blocks that actually dead ends, with Howard being halted by Mercer to the West. Call us crazy, but it seems weird that this prime corner lot, surrounded by all that valuable property, would be used as a low end flea market. Well apparently, the owner of this lot agrees. The flea market's days are pretty much numbered, with the owner planning to build a hotel on the lot. A luxury hotel to boot. What else would you expect? Said owner/developer is in discussions with some heavy hitters about the restaurant and bar space, but no deals are in place. What's more, the adjacent buildings are either vacant or severely underutilized, meaning that we could be looking at much more than just a little boutique number.