Jul 25, 2017, 1:36pm MST
Steven Totten Reporter Phoenix Business Journal
A new hotel is coming to Westgate in Glendale.
Branson, Missouri-based HCW Development, which has offices in Phoenix and Kansas, is building an Aloft Hotel on the corner of 93rd and Glendale avenues in Glendale.
The four-story, 100-room hotel will cost $12.5 million and take up roughly 68,000 square feet on 2.4 acres of land. HCW is expected to break ground on the project in November, with the opening slated for September 2018.
"The city of Glendale has been awesome," said Rick Huffman, CEO of HCW. "They welcomed us with open arms and they didn’t hold things up. We will definitely do more business in Glendale."
Huffman said this is the first Aloft property built since Marriott International Inc. acquired Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide in a deal that was valued at more than $12 million.
The property will be an upgraded version of the Aloft brand, including a redone lobby with food and cocktail offerings and all vinyl wood flooring in the guest rooms.
The Aloft brand is also testing robot delivery services, which may possibly come to the Glendale space.
"A robot will bring stuff to your rooms. It will be the first hotel to send a towel or deliver food to your room (via robot)," said Huffman.
Huffman said that Glendale may be the best place in the Valley to build a hotel right now.
"The occupancy rates of all the other hotels in the area are running very high, some of the highest in the Valley," he said. "The area is growing again, the need is definitely there."
According to Brian Friedman, economic development director for Glendale, the city is seeing incredibly low vacancy rates across the board. That, combined with the fact that "the Westgate area has half of the Valley's sporting teams, billions of dollars of private monies coming in and Conair opening the second largest campus in the Valley behind Intel," there will likely be more hotel development in the area.
"Between Zanjero and Westgate, we have well over 1,000 rooms, and we're looking to increase that number," said Friedman. "This is truly the heart of the West Valley. There's a very good possibility we'll be working with HCW and Mr. Huffman again."
Steven covers retail, restaurants, hospitality/tourism as well as aviation, small business and nonprofits.
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/07/25/exclusive-12-5m-hotel-coming-to-westgate.html