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blackc5
Oct 19, 2006, 7:32 PM
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/289220_hotels19.html

It's a hot hotel market downtown
Two new projects adding hundreds of rooms, condos

Thursday, October 19, 2006

By ANDREA JAMES
P-I REPORTER

Seattle is getting two new hotels, one of them a "luxury, eco-friendly" facility that claims to be the first of its kind in the world. Both projects point to a hot local hotel market.

Starwood Capital Group announced Wednesday a new hotel brand, called "1," that will be built on green construction principles. A prominent national environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, will be the hotel's environmental adviser.

The first "1" will be built at Second Avenue and Pine Street and is expected to open in late 2008. It will feature 110 hotel rooms, 91 condominiums and seven penthouses. It will donate 1 percent of revenue to environmental organizations.

"As a CEO and parent of three young children, I have grown acutely aware of the personal responsibility we each have to help preserve and protect our planet, which can only happen through the accumulation of small efforts by millions of individuals," said Barry Sternlicht, who leads the Greenwich, Conn.-based group.

Similar hotels are planned for Paris; Scottsdale, Ariz.; Mammoth Lakes, Calif.; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The company hopes to build at least 15 of the hotels in global resorts and in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Construction on another Seattle hotel project, the Denny Way Hyatt Hotel & Condominium Towers, should start in the first quarter of 2007, said Ariel Development, a developer on the project.

Located within walking distance of the Seattle Center at Denny Way and Sixth Avenue, the Hyatt will feature 158 rooms and 57 condos, according to the developer's Web site.

Seattle's hotel industry is seeing rapid growth. Normally, a new hotel is built every other year, but several hotels are in construction or in the permit process downtown, said Chris Burdett, senior vice president at Colliers International Hotels, an investment advisory counselor for the hospitality industry.

Over the next three years, almost 3,000 new rooms are scheduled to open in Seattle's core, he said.

"That is unusual," Burdett said. "I think this market has the ability to absorb all those rooms."

The Seattle metropolitan area has about 31,000 hotel rooms, with about one-third, or 10,000 of them, downtown, according to Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We're a hot hotel market; hotels want to be here," said bureau spokesman David Blandford.

So, what are the main drivers right now of the need for these added hotel rooms? Tourism? Business travelers? Conferences? All of the above?

Im guessing the 6th & Denny Hyatt will be the preferred place to stay for all of the 'beggars' coming to town to meet w/ the Gates foundation.

seaskyfan
Oct 19, 2006, 7:34 PM
From my nonprofit experience I bet the "beggars" will be staying somewhere cheaper.

MrVandelay
Dec 16, 2006, 4:47 PM
<Photo and caption text are from the Seattle Times>

Carla Murray, senior vice president of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, signs the 33-foot top structural beam on Thursday morning during a topping-off ceremony. The new 25-story tower is adding 415 new guest rooms and additional meeting spaces to the existing hotel. Seattle-based Callison Architecture designed the project, and Skanska USA was the general contractor

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/12/14/2003478151.jpg

OhioGuy
Dec 16, 2006, 5:10 PM
I like the numerous hotels that are available in downtown Seattle. It makes it much more easy getting a good rate through Priceline.com when so much competition is taking place between the numerous hotels. When I was up there, I requested one night in a 3 star hotel for $65 and my bid was accepted by The Renaissance. At the end of my trip, I needed one more night in Seattle and ended up bidding $85 for a 3 star hotel and I ended up with The Red Lion. Pretty good prices for 3 star hotels in downtown Seattle, I'd say! The Red Lion was especially sweet as they put me on their highest floor with a view overlooking Rainier Square. It was sweet! :)

(too bad it was raining the next morning and made it impossible to get some good photos from that high up)

M'sFan
Dec 16, 2006, 5:53 PM
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/289220_hotels19.html



So, what are the main drivers right now of the need for these added hotel rooms? Tourism? Business travelers? Conferences? All of the above?

Im guessing the 6th & Denny Hyatt will be the preferred place to stay for all of the 'beggars' coming to town to meet w/ the Gates foundation.

Recently I've read that Seattle's occupancy rate exceeds that of San Francisco now, especially in the summer, and SF has been the Gold Standard in Hotel occupancy. The PI also ran an article recently that more and more travellers are coming to Seattle in the winter, to take advantage of the great cultural attractions that are featured during te rainy season. Also, convention traffic is booming. Sometimes, summer hotel occupancy rates downtown inch up very close to the 100% level, with New York City-like rates to match. I am looking for the majority of these projects to get built as planned (hopefully), and for a few more announcements to be made by brands that want to be represented in such a dynamic market! (although some of this may very well be on the eastside)

mhays
Dec 16, 2006, 8:02 PM
The article misleads. Downtown Seattle (wide version) has had constant hotel construction since the mid-1990s at least.

New York rates? Not really. A room that goes for $200 or $250 in DTS will go for, guestimation, $400 or $500 in Manhattan. Mostly I'm getting that from a recent article, possibly in the PSBJ. (Also, the $600 room I stayed in last weekend, on someone else's dime, would have cost $250 here I'm guesssing, though apparently some of that is holiday shoppers flocking to Manhattan.)