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Downtown Brooklyn is getting another Hilton

Developer plans an approximately 120-room hotel on Schermerhorn

Optera Capital's Glenn Alba, AWH Partners' Russ Flicker and a rendering of 88 Schermerhorn Street
Optera Capital's Glenn Alba, AWH Partners' Russ Flicker and a rendering of 88 Schermerhorn Street

Brooklyn’s getting a new Hilton, just a block from another one.

The new hotel at 88 Schermerhorn Street will operate as a Motto by Hilton, a micro-hotel brand Hilton launched about a year ago, its developers confirmed. It’s a stone’s throw from Flank’s Hilton Brooklyn at 140 Schermerhorn Street.

The new Motto hotel is owned by AWH Partners and partner Opterra Capital, a company founded two years ago by former Blackstone Group managing director Glenn Alba. AWH principals and co-founders Russell Flicker and Jonathan Rosenfeld also worked at Blackstone. Flicker called Alba a close friend.

Together, they acquired the vacant multifamily building at 88 Schermerhorn Street in July from Louis Greco’s Second Development Services for $13.6 million. SDS had purchased it in 2013 for $11 million and had intended to put up condos.

Plans for the new hotel have not been filed, but Flicker said it would be approximately 120 rooms and 25 stories.

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Flicker said AWH is talking with lenders to begin construction and said the project was a long-term hold for the company, which has a 28-hotel portfolio nationwide.

“We think it’s very rare to find a market with the kind of RevPAR Downtown Brooklyn has,” he said, referring to revenue per available room. He also pointed to a “dearth” of hotel construction in the borough.

Revenue per available room in Brooklyn has risen 1.3 percent year-to-date to about $160, while Manhattan’s has fallen 4 percent and Queens’ has grown 2.2 percent, according to STR. Brooklyn has 78 hotels, Manhattan’ has 451 and Queens has 135.

AWH has hired Danny Forster & Architecture to design the hotel and is considering building it using modular construction. Forster’s firm is working on an AC Marriott in Manhattan that’s slated to become the world’s tallest modular hotel, a title held by CitizenM’s Bowery hotel.

Flicker said his group is “very seriously considering modular” for the project.

The construction method is historically tied to low-rise, wood-framed projects, but New York City hotel developers such as Richard Born and CitizenM’s partner Brack Capital Real Estate have been trying it out in recent years with mixed results.

Write to Erin Hudson at ekh@therealdeal.com

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