Wyndham Converts Art Deco Site In Prime Boston Biz Area
<B> Wyndham Converts Art Deco Site In Prime Boston Biz Area</B>
By Frank Rosci
An historic downtown Boston office building, the Batterymarch, is being transformed by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts into an upscale, full-service hotel slated to open during the first quarter of 1999.
Owned by Patriot American Hospitality, the nation's second-largest hotel real estate investment trust, the 362-room hotel was acquired in April for $33.9 million. It will be managed by an affiliate of Patriot's paired operating company, Wyndham International, and added to the Wyndham portfolio as a Grand Heritage property.
"This project will be the purest example of adaptive re-use, an approach to major markets that we've been touting since last year," said Leslie Ng, Patriot's senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions. "As an office building, the Batterymarch was outdated. But given the highly desirable location of the building, in the heart of Boston's financial district, as well as its appropriately configured floor plan, we can turn it into a luxury hotel for business and leisure travelers, bypassing the typical two-year permit process required for new development, in a much more cost-efficient manner than we could acquire an existing hotel."
Acquisition and development capital has been more readily available nationally over the last several years because of the strength of the U.S. economy, Ng noted, enabling the company to establish itself in a number of new primary and secondary cities, including Boston and San Antonio.
"Our redevelopment of the Batterymarch Building, the first Art Deco-style building in Boston, into an upscale hotel underscores the company's strategy to expand the Wyndham brand in major metropolitan markets with notoriously high barriers of entry--in this instance Boston, long considered one of the most important business centers in the country," said Wyndham International chairman and CEO James Carreker.
Each of the hotel's guest rooms will be upgraded with Wyndham's standard "Business, The Wyndham Way," with amenities that include free long distance access, complimentary copies of USA Today, dataports, voice mail, adequate work lighting, oversized desks and either one telephone with a long cord, or two telephones. Other in-room amenities include coffee makers and complimentary coffee, hair dryers, irons and ironing boards, shower massagers and Bath & Body Works toiletries.
"It is clearly our distribution intent to be in all the top 15 national U.S. markets because that's what business travelers expect," noted Mack Koonce, executive vice president of marketing for Wyndham International, who also is involved in strategic planning for the company. Along with Patriot, Wyndham has gone from a hotel company with about 20 properties in 1989 to one with 488 owned, managed, leased and franchised hotels today. "We believe we're entering Boston with the right product at the right time," Koonce said.
One of the prime considerations for Wyndham was to refurbish the 14-story, 280,000-sq.-ft. Batterymarch--a designated Boston landmark occupying a full city block and, when built in 1928, the city's tallest building. That was preferable to either acquiring an existing hotel or constructing a new one, Koonce said, because "it was much less expensive to remodel, at $40 million, than to build. From a destination viewpoint, that meant being able to offer a high quality product in Boston much sooner than later."
For meetings, the new Wyndham will feature 10,000 square feet of meeting space, including 18 meeting rooms for group sizes ranging from 10 to 200 attendees. The hotel's 1,893-sq.-ft. ballroom will be divisible into three sections.
"During the week the new Wyndham will serve as a hotel, while national meeting groups from the financial, hi-tech and educational arenas will be among our principal meeting markets," said general manager Dick Mason. Per person (double occupancy), per night room rates will be $335 rack and $315 corporate from April to November; and $295 rack and $275 corporate the rest of the year, Mason said.
A full-service business and fitness centers, a 120-seat restaurant with a menu inspired by the wine country of Northern California and Tuscany, a lobby bar and a library round out the hotel's services and amenities.
In addition to being in Boston's financial district, the hotel is just blocks away from Quincy Market, Fanueil Hall, the Waterfront and Post Office Square.
The Wyndham Boston will be Patriot American's second Grand Heritage Hotel in Boston, joining the 322-room Tremont Boston, which became a Wyndham on June 1. The Tremont offers 12,000 square feet of meeting space, including three ballrooms of 4,320, 3,900 and 2,970 square feet, respectively. An oval-shaped, 1,620-sq.-ft. Library Room for banquets up to 320 people and receptions up to 450 also is available.
Other areas of the hotel include four conference rooms and an executive boardroom, two nightclubs, a restaurant, a fully-equipped fitness center and a lobby lounge.
Wyndham International currently manages the 180-room Wyndham Garden Hotel Burlington, which is located about 20 minutes from downtown Boston, and the 148-room Wyndham Garden Hotel Waltham, located nine miles from Boston.