From left: Robert Toll, Barry Sternlicht and renderings of the development (credit: Mayor's office)

Recent press speculations and predictions have been confirmed: Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office today announced the selection of Toll Brothers and Starwood Capital Group to develop a 550,000-square-foot complex at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, which will include a 200-room luxury hotel and 159 residential units. The hotel and residential complex will rise 10 stories, and there will be a separate five-story residential building, a city press release says. [more]

With fewer hotel rooms under construction, hotel developers hope the reduction in new rooms will help to revive the hospitality industry.

The October 2009 STR/TWR/Dodge Construction Pipeline Report noted that the total active U.S. hotel development pipeline includes 4,089 projects comprising 435,265 rooms.

This represents a 32.7 percent decrease in the number of rooms in the total active pipeline — which includes projects in the construction, final planning and planning stages, but not in the pre planning stage — compared to October 2008.

“The number of rooms in construction fell 41.2 percent from the same time last year,” said Duane Vinson, vice president at STR. A number of planned hotels have ground to a halt in Manhattan including the Lower East Side’s 180 Ludlow Street.
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