September 15, 2006

New New York City hotels: even mid-range is $219

Open nearly a month, the Holiday Inn Express, Brooklyn on Thursday held its ribbon-cutting ceremony. But in a city starved for hotel rooms, it's still no bargain by non-New York standards.

The hotel's occupancy rate is already 86 percent for September, with fall room rates typically starting at $219, according to the hotel's director of sales, Cathy Pascale.

But at least that's still under the average New York City hotel room rate for 2005: $243 per night.

The Brooklyn Holiday Inn Express has 115 rooms and free wi-fi throughout the property. It has a limited amout of uncovered parking out back, for $20 a night. It's located half a block from an M/R subway stop on Union Street, not far from the still-polluted Gowanus Canal.

To their credit, hotel and city officials at the new conference didn't shy away from the fact the hotel's "changing" neighborhood straddles the Park Slope/Gowanus border, where the neighbors tend to be auto shops or the sprawling South Brooklyn Casket Co. The hotel's "well located across from the Parkside Service Center of Brooklyn," Daniel Doctoroff, NYC deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, said while smiling and pointing to the auto shop two doors down from a condemned building.

The hotel's opening means there are now about 1,000 hotel rooms in Brooklyn, compared with 71,000 citywide. A number of others are in the works for the borough, most rounded up by blogger The Gowanus Lounge: The Smith, a boutique hotel at the end of the Smith Street restaurant row, but across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention; a possible Comfort Inn on Butler Street; and another almost-Park Slope-hotel on Fourth Avenue near Fifth Street.

In addition to the Holiday Inn Express, a handful of other hotels opened at the end of the summer in New York City. Ian Schraeger's chic overhaul of the Gramercy Park Hotel continues to grab the headlines (most recently for barring entry to Paris Hilton.) Guests get key access to the Manhattan's last private park, but room rates start around $500.

In mid-August, Marriott finally opened its 226-room Upper East Side hotel (with a gym and free in-room Internet,) and the 80-room Rockefeller Center Hotel opened with free wi-fi and a gym.

It's a good bet the all-suite 564-room Rihga Royal is nearly done with its conversion into the upscale London NYC considering its latest e-mail "deal" starts at $359 a night, a steep jump from its usual $199 package. (Gordon Ramsay's first U.S. restaurant will also open at the hotel in November, according to the New York Times.)

In August, the 705-room Radisson Lexington Hotel finished its $20 million renovation job. And the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott is almost done with its own renovations, bringing 282 new rooms to the borough. (Also, Business Travel News Online reports that 56 percent of upscale hotels in Manhattan plan renovations during the next 18 months.)

The new Holiday Inn Express is co-owned by the Rhode Island-based Magna Hospitality Group and Sam Chang's McSam Hotel Group. Of the 5,000 hotel rooms in development throughout the city, "Mr. Chang has about 3,000 of those," said Christyne Nicholas, president of NYC & Co., the city's tourism bureau.

Also on tap from Magna is a 40-room boutique property in Manhattan called Hotel 373, fifth avenue. It's scheduled to open in November on 35th Street at 3rd Avenue.

The Wingate Inn on 35th Street plans to open October 1 and the website for the 45-room Duane Street Hotel now says "opening December 2006." The long-delayed Six Columbus should open "this fall, maybe even as early as November," according to HotelChatter.

On the downside, Marriott last month abandoned plans to build in Harlem, according to the Columbia Spectator. (Link found via Curbed.)

Doctoroff said that of the 5,000 hotel rooms in development for New York City, about half are located outside Midtown Manhattan. In an interview after the news conference, he downplayed the problem of existing hotels converting to condos, such as The Plaza.

"That's starting to stop," he said. "Prices have gone up to the point that the market is starting to solve its own problem."

And although he mentioned that the city is forming a hotels task force, he declined to discuss specifics. He did say there is still a chance for a subsidy to help bring a 1,200-room hotel into the Javits Convention Center expansion.

Update: There's also a 400-room Sheraton planned for downtown Brooklyn on Duffield Street, according to the Daily News.

Earlier: Gramercy Park, Holiday Inn among new NY hotels

September 15, 2006 12:24 PM in Hotelology, Out of Manhattan

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