BETHESDA, MD—Marriott International's JW Marriott brand will add 10 new hotels to its portfolio this year.
Among the new hotels are properties in Miami, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Chicago. On a global scale, the brand also will add properties in Hangzhou, China; Bogota, Colombia; Ankara, Turkey; and three hotels in India. An additional 20 JW Marriott's are in development or under construction in 13 countries, including The Maldives; Vietnam and Puerto Rico.
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SAN FRANCISCO—The W San Francisco hotel here has now attained Silver-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. According to the hotel’s manager, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the property is the first existing hotel belonging to a major brand that has attained the certification.
In total, seven existing hotels across the U.S. have attained the Silver LEED ranking. The W San Francisco’s LEED attributes include the facts that 70% of its guestroom lighting and 90% of its back-of-the-house lighting is energy efficient by using compact fluorescent lighting and LED bulbs as well as motion sensors, among other technologies; the new HVAC cooling towers save 300 kilowatts per year; motion sensors power off the HVAC system in unoccupied guestrooms; and there are Energy Star power management features on all of the hotel’s PCs. The hotel is also now considering installing wind turbines on its roof, which would be a first for a commercial building in San Francisco. Furthermore, all food and beverage served for meetings at the W San Francisco is organic, biodynamic and local. ATLANTA—During the first quarter of 2010, America's Best Franchising, Inc. sold 13 new hotel franchises and opened 14 new properties.
Among the new hotels are America's Best Inns & Suites in Kankakee, IL; Caseyville, IL; Besserman City, NC; Modesto, CA; Pompano Beach, FL; Phoenix, OR; Parowan, UT and Yimu, China. The company's Budgetel Inns & Suites brand also added new properties in Yimu, China; Watersboro, SC; Lithonia, GA; and San Antonio, TX. America's Best Franchising plans to sell and open between 45 and 55 properties this year. NEW YORK—New York’s Solita Soho Hotel is now the latest property to join Choice Hotels International’s Ascend Collection. Dynasty Management is the owner and manager of the 42-room hotel.
Located in New York’s eclectic SoHo neighborhood, the Solita Soho Hotel offers guestrooms with dark wood furnishings, designer bedding, desks, plasma televisions and marble bathrooms with massage showerheads. Bottled water, high-speed Internet access and local telephone calls are all complimentary. LOS ANGELES—The Ritz-Carlton Los Angeles will open today. The property is owned by AEG and MacFarlane Partners.
The luxury hotel is part of the $2.5 billion L.A. LIVE mixed-use development and is housed within a 54 story tower along with the new J.W. Marriott Los Angeles. The property offers 123 guestrooms, a full-service spa, a new restaurant concept from celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, a Ritz-Carlton Club Lounge and a fitness center. Gensler was responsible for the architecture and the interior design was handled by Barry Design. The hotel was also designed in accordance with LEED standards. ATLANTA—The Loews Atlanta Hotel has made its debut here. The property is Loews Hotels' first new build hotel in more than five years and its first hotel in Georgia.
The hotel is the anchor of 12th and Midtown, a mixed-use development in midtown Atlanta. The 414-room property was designed by Daroff Design Inc. and DDI Architects, PC and features a contemporary Southern style and local artwork. The property also offers more than 25,000 square feet of meeting space, a spa and fitness center and a signature restaurant and bar. CHICAGO, IL—Ian Schrager Hotels has acquired the 285-room Ambassador East Hotel on the Gold Coast, a hotel best known for its celebrity-frequented Pump Room restaurant.
In a deal brokered by Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, Schrager paid $25 million for the historic property, which was built in 1926. The Harp Group was the seller, though Harp had fallen behind in its debt payments to its lender iStar. The Pump Room reached the pinnacle of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. VIEQUES ISLAND, PUERTO RICO—W Hotels Worldwide has opened its second W Retreat property in the world here on Puerto Rico’s Vieques Island. Reig Capital owns the 157-room resort through its affiliate Vieques Hotel Partners.
Set on 30 beachfront acres, the W Retreat & Spa-Vieques Island was designed by Studio Urquiola and offers the MiX on beach restaurant; the W Café; the Spa Chakra; a garden sanctuary; a fire pit; a 24-hour fitness center; two secluded shorelines; an outdoor pool and bar area with cabanas; and W Hotels The Store. The first W Retreat opened in the Maldives in 2006. Two more are on their way in Koh Samui, Thailand, and Bali. JAMAICA--Secrets Resorts and Spas has opened its first property in Jamaica, the Secrets Wild Orchid Montego Bay.
The new all-suites resort will be joined next month by the Secrets St. James Montego Bay. To date, the two-resort, $180 million project has infused $100 million into the local Jamaican economy and created 1,500 jobs during construction with an additional 950 jobs created for resort operations by the end of 2010. The resort features 350 suites with in-room amenities that include four-poster beds, full entertainment systems with LCD flat-screen televisions and CD/DVD players, a Jacuzzi for two, private furnished balconies and 24-hour room service. Other features include eight dining options; seven bars and lounges, including a swim-up bar; free-form swimming pools and beachfront Jacuzzi; a 15,000-square-foot spa featuring indoor and outdoor spa facilities and hydrotherapy circuit; The Promenade, a main plaza shared by the two resorts offering a host of activities, boutiques, entertainment and dining options; the Seawind Beach Club with couples cabanas, palapas and a gourmet restaurants; on-site sports, including tennis, beach volleyball, basketball, soccer and non-motorized water sports, and daily yoga, aerobics, and introductory SCUBA classes; and more than 16,000 square feet of meeting space for business conventions and weddings. Guests of Secrets Wild Orchid will be invited to enjoy many offerings of the Secrets St. James resort and vice versa. These benefits include access to restaurants, lounges, spas, open-air theater and other amenities. Secrets Resorts and Spas currently has three resorts in Mexico’s Riviera Maya region, one in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, and is slated to open additional properties in Huatulco and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and the Caribbean by the end of 2012. It also has plans to enter the Aruba market. Secrets is a member of Preferred Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. LOS ANGELES, CA—Korean Air is pressing city government to approve plans for its $1 billion project to replace the 60-year-old Wilshire Grand Hotel it owns with a new 560-room property.
The redevelopment also includes construction of a 65-story office building on the existing Wilshire Grand site. The current hotel has 385 rooms. |
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