New, Renovated N.Y. Hotels

<B>New, Renovated N.Y. Hotels</B>

By Robert Selwitz

Several new hotels recently have entered New York's lodging derby. The loudest bells were sounded for the dual June openings of the 444-room Hilton Times Square right in the midst of freshly scrubbed 42nd Street, and the 463-unit Embassy Suites Hotel.

The Times Square property sits atop a 330,000-sq.-ft. retail and entertainment complex, including an AMC megaplex theater and the planned Madame Tussard's Wax Museum. All rooms, including 15 deluxe suites, feature high-speed Internet access and a wireless keyboard to TV Internet access. Also on hand are safes large enough to store laptop computers.

The new Embassy Suites is a reasonable walk from Wall Street, the World Financial Center and the rest of the high-powered fiscal district. At the just-opened, 200-room Muse, opening rates range between $295 and $395, with suites starting from $450 to $600.

As for innovations and upgrades, the year-old, 138-room Holiday Inn Wall Street (actually at 15 Gold Street), now claims to be "New York's most technologically advanced hotel." It features a special floor where each room features cellular connection services, a Canon printer, T-1 Internet access, and Toshiba Satellite laptops that guests can use in or out of the hotel.

Also, the 1,000-room New Yorker Hotel is adding 10,000 square feet of meeting space to its conference facilities, bringing the total to more than 30,000 square feet. And, said general manager Barry S. Mann, "we're installing T-1 Internet access in each room, work that should be completed by early fall. This is an amenity usually reserved for four- and five-star hotels that charge substantially higher rates than ours."

Given the state of the industry, it's not surprising a number of new properties are expected to join New York City's hotel roster in the near future, including the highly styled Dylan at 52 East 41st Street. With rates slated for the $295-$450 territory, the Dylan is the result of a $30 million renovation to a 1903 beaux-arts structure. Near the New York Public Library, onsite amenities at the Dylan will include high-speed Internet access, televisions with Web access, and two-line telephones with dataports and voicemail.

This year's other entries are expected to include the 125-room Bryant Park; the former Planet Hollywood, now a Starwood property, with 570 rooms; the 270-room W New York-Union Square; and the Henry Hudson, with 810 rooms.

Likely for 2001 are the 94-room Envoy Club, 250-room Chambers Hotel on Park Avenue, the 94-room Le Marquis Hotel, a 219-room Hilton Gardens and a 311-room Ritz-Carlton.

Highlights for 2002 could well include another Ritz-Carlton at the Sixth Avenue and 59th Street site of the former St. Moritz, the 180-room Greenwich Village Hotel, the 100-room Astor Place Hotel and the highly anticipated Westin E-Walk, with 858 rooms at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue.

Two more distant entries already have built up plenty of anticipation: A 200-room hotel that's expected to fill the square block hole across from Bloomingdale's at Lexington Avenue and 58th Street, sometime during 2003; and in 2004, the Mandarin Oriental, with 250 rooms, occupying the former Coliseum site on Columbus Circle.