Park Slope's Holiday Inn . . . or is it Gowanus

Subject: Park Slope's Holiday Inn . . . or is it Gowanus

holy crap, I thought that place on Union between 3rd and 4th was more condos . . .
:shock:

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/405236p-343189c.html

Park Slope hotel is a bold gamble
Owners hope future growth in nabe will make it pay off

By JEGO ARMSTRONG and JOYCE SHELBY
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Staying at Park Slope's Holiday Inn Express, set to open in June, won't automatically make you smart enough to fly a helicopter or ride a bucking bronco.

Those "smarts" are reserved for characters in the company's edgy TV commercials.

What owners of the almost-finished hotel on Union St. are hoping for are savvy tourists and business travelers who want to be close to Brooklyn and Manhattan destinations without spending all their bucks on a place to stay.

Will price alone - $129 to $199 a night - be enough to draw guests to a street with five auto body repair shops and a gas station?

"There are very few hotels in Brooklyn. We felt there was a need for an upscale, midtier, value-priced property in the Park Slope/Carroll Gardens area," said Robbie Wilson, regional operations director for the Magna Hospitality Group in Rhode Island, which owns the hotel.

"The site isn't all that bad. You have to look ahead two or three years," said Thomas McConnell, senior managing director of Cushman & Wakefield's hotel group. "Driving down Fourth Ave., I see a lot of residential housing going in."

McConnell said if Forest City Ratner builds its proposed basketball arena, the hotel could attract lots of guests.

"If you walk around the area, you'll see tourists with the Michelin Green Guide walking through Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights," said Rae Rosen, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "It seems to me there's a market there."

The 115-room, nine-story hotel will offer an expanded continental breakfast, marble baths, some rooms with Jacuzzis and self-parking, but no swimming pool or group meeting rooms. The hotel expects to employ 25 to 30 people. Reservations already have started coming in, said Cathy Pascale, the inn's sales director. Most were made by people from the neighborhood.

"They have family and friends visiting. I've had one family reunion contact me and a couple of school groups, too," Pascale said.

Jimmy Dontas, part owner of the nearby New College Restaurant, predicted, "For us, it's going to be great."

Tourists were skeptical.

"We're always looking for a new experience," said Graham Kearns, a lawyer from England. "I can't say it's the first place we'd jump at in terms of hotels, but I won't say no, either."

Originally published on April 3, 2006