The Bronx is booming with boutique and luxury hotels

Plans are in place for hundreds of new rooms across the borough, which has already added several upscale lodging options in recent years.

BY DENIS SLATTERY  

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

Monday, September 15, 2014

TOM CRANEThe Opera House Hotel has been doing brisk business since opening last December on 149th St. in the Bronx.

Hotel, motel, holiday in the Bronx?

That’s right, the borough is booming — with boutique and luxury hotels.

Plans are in place for hundreds of new rooms across the borough, which has already added several upscale lodging options in recent years.

“We welcome the development that’s going on in the Bronx,” said Douglas Brookman, director of operations for the Empire Hotel Group, which helped to open the Opera House hotel on 149th St. last December. “We’re excited that people recognize that the Bronx is a destination.”

We welcome the development that’s going on in the Bronx.

The popular Opera House is only one of a number of boutiques and bed-and-breakfast-style options have been popping up around the mainland borough.

A sleek new 56-room tower in Melrose, dubbed the Umbrella Hotel, is set to start taking reservations by the end of the month.

And plans were filed last week to build a 75-room luxury hotel on the Grand Concourse and 140th St., according to the office of borough president Ruben Diaz Jr.

CUNNINGHAM, TOMThe Bronx Opera House on E. 149th St. in the Bronx circa 1979.

“It will be a high-end hotel,” developer Sanjay Patel told real estate blog newyorkyimby, which first reported the plans.

A 12-story hotel is already under construction on nearby Exterior St. and E. 146th St., and work has begun on a Comfort Inn on 135th St. and Third Ave.

Some residents are cautious in their assessment of the potential impact the new hotels will have on the blue-collar neighborhoods.

It’s going to be interesting to see how these hotels play out.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how these hotels play out,” said Melrose native Ed Garcia Conde, who noted that other areas, including Harlem and parts of Brooklyn, were already gentrified when the hotels came in.

“We don’t know yet the effect this will have on the South Bronx,” Garcia added.

Some big names are being drawn to the borough as well.