Lois Weiss

Lois Weiss

Real Estate

Jeff Bezos’ investment Sonder takes over Long Island City hotel rooms

Jeff Bezos will have an investment in Long Island City after all.

Sonder, which counts Bezos’ family funds, Alex Rodriguez and Elon Musk’s fund among its investors, is taking over its first Long Island City hotel rooms.

The tech-enabled hotel company has leased all 100 of the apartment/hotel units at the Z NYC Hotel at 11-01 43rd Ave., Long Island City, from Merchants Hospitality.

“This continues the trend of great tenants and smart money moving into Long Island City,” says Merchants principal Adam Hochfelder.

All the rooms were renovated last year and have floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping sunset views of Manhattan. Sonder is expected to add design flair and plenty of tech touches controlled through its proprietary app.

Sonder was represented by David Behin, JD Cohen and Billy Cohen of Newmark Knight Frank along with Julia Maksimova of the commercial division of NYC Keller Williams.

Merchants represented itself in the seven-year lease that includes two five-year options. Sources say the rent will start at $2.5 million per year.

Merchants, which owns 17 restaurants and other hotels, owns the remaining 45,000 square feet of retail and office space. It will open its fourth Treadwell Park restaurant there later this spring. Its Savanna Rooftop lounge — a bar, eatery and event space at the top with 360-degree views — will soon be enclosed for year-round service.

Additional office space is leased to the international event production company NEP.

According to CoStar data, the remaining 14,310 square feet, along with signage opportunities, are being marketed by Ross Kaplan, Jeffrey Roseman and Drew Weiss of Newmark Knight Frank.

Sonder was founded by Francis Davidson in 2014 and uses technology to find savings and vet guests. It now offers cool properties in cool neighborhoods in 30 cities with over 14,000 rooms around the world, a spokesman said. While it has numerous properties in Manhattan, this is its first Long Island City location.