No longer an independent, the Stamford Plaza and Conference Center will soon be raising two brand flags in front of its Summer Street entrance ”“ a Crowne Plaza on one side and Holiday Inn Express on the other.
“We have some very big things happening here,” said Bharat Prashad, acting general manager of the Stamford Plaza. “This is not a plan, it is action with work being done right now.”
The hotel is currently undergoing an extensive overhaul after having sold in late 2009 to the Montreal-based Rosdev Group. The former Sheraton hotel has been independently owned for the previous two years to its detriment, Prashad said.
“Being independent hurt us very badly, it put us out of our competitive set, and out of the world of corporate bookings,” he said. “Without a flag you”™re nowhere for a hotel of this size.”
The Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Express are both owned by the InterContinental Hotels Group headquartered in Denham, U.K.
Prashad said for the past year the hotel has kept a low profile, not engaging in much advertising or marketing, because its management was planning for the refurbishments in 2011. He said the project was slowed a bit at its outset because of availability of lending capital.
Andrew Cosslett, InterContinental Hotels Group CEO, said in the company”™s 2011 address to stockholders that this year looks to be the best for hospitality in the past five. He said the industry staged the sharpest recovery in its history, delivering 6 percent growth in revenue per available room in 2010.
“This is great timing, as the market returns we will be back and strong in Stamford,” Prashad said. “We are now moving at an aggressive pace with some clear goals. Money has to be spent and there is work to be done, there is no question about that.”
The hotel will be the second in the United States for Rosdev, which owns mostly Holiday Inns and Crowne Plazas; the first was the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands in Secaucus, N.J.
“They are true hotel people and have a very fruitful history in their investments,” Prashad said.
The Rosdev Group bought the Stamford property for $11 million from Host Hotels in August 2009 and three weeks ago began rolling out a plan to put between $12 million and $16 million of investment into the property.
Henry Topas, executive vice president of Rosdev, said the company has a strong working relationship with InterContinental. “We feel that their brands aren”™t represented in the area,” said Topas. “We have a strong strategy with an upscale brand that will fit perfectly into the growing Stamford community.”
Prashad said after long talks it was agreed by all that the major investment and overhaul is the only way to get the space to be relevant again in the market. The hotel is being completely overhauled, from beds, dressers and carpeting to reconfiguring the five-story atrium, for which the hotel is known.
“It’s this great large space, and the first thing business people in Stamford think of when they think of our hotel, but it is not used to its potential,” Prashad said.
He said the new design will move the large executive bar closer to the entrance, add a restaurant dining space and change some of the hotel office rooms into board rooms open to corporate guests.
“The beauty of this property is it has such great potential,” said Prashad. “Once we have gone door to door to the businesses in Stamford and shown them our confidence and conviction in the property, we will begin to pursue the event space market aggressively. There is business to be had in Stamford for a large convention style meeting space.”
Prashad said the project will also include refacing the façade of the building from the current gray and blue tiles and reconfigure the large suites of the Sheraton era into additional rooms.
“The entire restructuring is based on what the current needs of the corporate traveler are,” said Prashad. “There were a lot of oversized rooms which made bad use of space; today demands a more balanced approach.”
The 480 rooms that the hotel began with will be closer to 500 as the project pushes closer to its completion date in September. He said contractors, which are currently working from the top of the hotel down, will continue to be added as the project progresses.
“From the outside, you”™d hardly know there was construction happening,” said Prashad. “Soon that won”™t be the case.”
The hotel will have 100 rooms designated for the Holiday Inn Express, which will have a separate entrance and reception on the north end of the building. The remaining 400 rooms will be Crowne Plaza rooms.
“The reason for the split is that we felt the hotel was too big to cater solely to the Crowne Plaza corporate style clientele,” Prashad said. “Even though the majority of our business will be corporate travel, with a mid-class budget option mixed in we are much more adaptable.”
Prashad said there will be certain staff members who will work for both hotels and others who will be associated with a single brand. He said the hotel does plan on hiring going forward, but could not give a number of positions.
