By Linda Collins
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — The hotel building boom this newspaper was reporting about in 2006 is still happening.

The Eagle has learned that two more hotels — a Hilton Hyatt Place Hotel and a Best Western — are now coming to Downtown Brooklyn.

Gary Wisinski of the McSam Hotel Group told the Eagle, “We have executed a license agreement with Hyatt Hotels to develop a Hyatt Place Hotel.�

The Hyatt, which will be at a site on Nevins Street between Schermerhorn and Livingston streets that was acquired by McSam in 2005, will have 176 rooms in 13 floors.

“Demolition has commenced,� he said in an email. “We are expecting to open in the first quarter of 2011.�

A check of Department of Buildings (DOB) records revealed an approved permit for the demolition of a two-story store building on the site, 32-38 Nevins St.

Mark Williams, vice president of North American development for Best Western, told the Eagle on Thursday that either an eight- or 14-story Best Western will soon go up at 55 Flatbush Ave. Extension, at Bridge Street, to be (appropriately) called the Best Western Manhattan Bridge Hotel.

It will have 80 rooms.

A check of DOB records revealed there are no building permit applications filed as yet. Property Shark.com records show the owner as Flatbush Hospitality LLC, with Gerald Meyer named as principle.

These two hotels bring the total number of hotel rooms that will be serving the underserved Downtown Brooklyn area to close to 2,000.

They join The Marriott on Adams Street (656 rooms with its new addition); the conjoined Aloft/Sheraton on Duffield Street (500 rooms); Hotel Indigo, also on Duffield Street (164 rooms); The Nu Hotel at The Smith, Smith Street and Atlantic Avenue (93 rooms); and Holiday Inn at 300 Schermerhorn St. (250 rooms).

And this does not include the proposed hotels at Brooklyn Bridge Park (100-200 rooms) and in Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Plan (150 rooms in “Miss Brooklyn�).

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