A spate of new hotel projects throughout the city are undergoing construction or have been announced in the past few months. They will add hundreds of rooms to the current availability. During key events in town, hotel rooms downtown and nearby sell out so there is demand for more. Here’s a guide on what’s underway downtown and what to expect in the near future:
Millcraft Investments has been hard at work on The Gardens at Market Square, a multi-tenant high-rise office building which will combine a 198-room Hilton Garden Inn with a 128,000-square-foot office building. The project will also include 14,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and a 330-car garage. Millcraft plans to debut a new restaurant, Roost 50 New American Kitchen and a Burgatory. The project is expected to cost $103 million. It is expected to open in 2015.
An eight-story Holiday Inn featuring 99 rooms is planned next to Fort Pitt Commons overlooking the Monongahela River. The Forza Group said the new hotel will also feature a restaurant and bar. There is no timeline for construction yet but the project is slated to cost $9 million.
The Henry W. Oliver Building, downtown, will be renovated into an Embassy Suites Hotel. McKnight Realty Partners plans to convert the building’s 14th through 25th floors, which had been occupied by K&L Gates law firm. The project, being developed by Millcraft Investments and the URA, will feature a rooftop pool and bar and will be built in conjunction with a parking garage on Forbes Avenue, which will take the place of the vacant Saks Fifth Avenue. Opening at year end 2015, it will also offer 30,000-square-feet of retail space and 70 apartments.
Drury Hotels wants to transform the Federal Reserve building on Grant Street into a new hotel. The $30 million project is expected to begin early next year and will feature more than 200 rooms, banquet space, a rooftop deck and swimming pool. Work should be completed by Nov. 2015.
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants will soon open the Hotel Monaco in the James Reed Building. Located in the 400 block of Sixth Avenue, the hotel will consist of 248 rooms, a 120-seat restaurant and nearly 9,000-square-feet of meeting space. The project is being developed by Kimpton and Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group. The hotel is expected to open Jan. 20.
Plans from Greenway Realty Holdings are underway to transform the former Salvation Army headquarters downtown into a boutique Distrikt Hotel, a brand that was launched in Manhattan near Times Square five years ago. The project will provide about 186 rooms to be ready for guests by spring 2016.
The historic Granite Building at Sixth Avenue and Wood Street will be converted into the Forbes Hotel, a 90,000-square-foot boutique hotel complete with 104 rooms, three bars and a brasserie-style restaurant. Built in 1889 as the German National Bank, the Granite Building is in the heart of downtown. The new development is expected to open spring 2016 and will feature an atrium and executive suites will add four more stories to the building’s existing eight. On the adjacent parcel, formerly home to an Arby’s, a “twin” will be built, thereby expanding the hotel’s floor plan. It will offer extended stay options to corporations to assist with executive recruitment.
Just over the river in the South Side, a limited-service hotel is planned on East Carson Street in a former car wash, near South Side Works. The Forza group is also planning another hotel near Station Square. And in related news, The Sheraton Pittsburgh at Station Square just completed a $15 million renovation that involved a complete redesign of 399 guest rooms.