WHAT’S GOING ON
A king guestroom at the 126-room Hyatt Place Detroit/Novi, which opened last August.
Perhaps no city in the U.S. has had a rougher go of it than Detroit. The recession enervated the city; then the auto industry’s demise nearly crippled it. But a new mayor and an influx of young people are giving cause for hope and a glimmer of new development. There are already signs of a hotel revival in and around Detroit. Last August, Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Packard Hospitality Group opened the 126-room Hyatt Place Detroit/Novi. Also last year, in July, Detroit saw the reincarnation of the Pontchartrain Hotel, this time in the form of the Crowne Plaza Detroit Downtown Convention Center, a 25-story, 367-room hotel. In total, according to Lodging Econometrics, as of Q2 2014, Detroit has a total of 362 hotels/42,458 rooms.
WHAT’S NEXT
The outlook for the city is even brighter, with a slew of interesting projects on the horizon—particularly in the city proper. This includes the 136-room Aloft Detroit, a redevelopment of the historic David Whitney Building, slated to open in December. Farther out, last January, a group of investors reportedly acquired a piece of land near downtown’s Grand Circus Park to build a 118-room boutique hotel, which would be part of Commune Hotels’ Joie de Vivre brand. Meanwhile, in July, word spread of Chicago-based Aparium Hotel Group’s intentions to redevelop a former Detroit Fire Department headquarters building at 250 W. Larned into a 100-room boutique hotel. The hotel, currently billed as The Foundation, is expected to open in Q1 2016.
PIPELINE SNAPSHOT
* Holiday Inn Express & Suites (Monroe; 85 rooms; 2015)
* Hampton Inn & Suites (Troy; 102 rooms; 2015)
* Courtyard by Marriott (Farmington Hills; 106 rooms; 2016)
* TownePlace Suites (Troy; 90 rooms; 2016)
* Hampton Inn (Dearborn; 96 rooms; 2017 or beyond)