250 Rooms in 14 Stories
By Linda Collins
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Following the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce-sponsored forum on hotel development in Brooklyn on Oct. 16 (covered in the Eagle on Oct. 17) it was learned that plans for another hotel in Downtown Brooklyn were in the works.
A 14-story, 250-room Holiday Inn will be built at 300 Schermerhorn St., between Bond and Nevins streets, in Boerum Hill — a 187-foot by 80-foot lot that is currently used as a parking facility.
The property has been on the market and promoted as “a potential mixed-use development site” for several months by Massey Knakal Realty Services Brooklyn with an asking price of $12 million.
It has been bought for $11.9 million by Tyler Hospitality, a hotel building firm new to Brooklyn, according to Massey Knakal partner Brian Leary, who represented the seller in the transaction.
“They [Tyler Hospitality] are currently building hotels in Times Square and at JFK,” said Leary. “So I feel good about the company and their plans for a Downtown Brooklyn hotel.”
Tyler Hospitality is headed by Krishna Mehta and his son, Sanjeev Mehta, both of whom have been out of town and unavailable so further details about this particular development are not known.
However, Holiday Inns typically have a restaurant, lounge, available parking, meeting rooms and other amenities like a swimming pool and fitness center.
At the Oct. 16 forum, moderator Joe Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, referring to the borough’s 2.5 million people and less than 1,000 hotel rooms, wondered why the current boom in hotel building hasn’t happened sooner. He reported that there are 1,250 hotel rooms currently under development in Downtown Brooklyn alone, and the Chamber estimates that there are roughly 3,000 hotel rooms planned or under construction borough-wide.
The Holiday Inn is being designed by Gene Kaufman of Gene Kaufman Architects (designer of the combined Sheraton and Aloft on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn), who was also a panelist at the forum where, in commenting on Brooklyn’s capacity for more hotel rooms, said, “At the scale we’re talking about there is room for more.”
He also said he believes travelers, especially foreign travelers, are ready to see a different part of the city, and are looking for a variation on their New York experience.
Said Leary, “300 Schermerhorn is an outstanding hotel development opportunity. What makes the site so unique is its proximity to the transportation hub ... and its large 13,765-square-foot footprint..”
The as-of-right maximum buildable square footage is approximately 83,000 square feet, or 90,000 square feet if it includes a community-use facility, according to Leary’s description.
Known Downtown Hotels
As previously reported in the Eagle, the following hotels are known to be in the works for Downtown Brooklyn: Cambria Suites, 300 rooms; The Smith, 93 rooms; 38 Nevins St., 180 rooms; the Marriott at Brooklyn Bridge expansion, 280 rooms (already open); Sheraton/Aloft, 500 rooms; and Atlantic Yards, 180 rooms.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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