Downtown Expansion

A Hotel Grows in Brooklyn to Meet Demand

by Diane Greer

The largest hotel in Brooklyn is getting even bigger.

When Queens-based Muss Development hatched plans for the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel in 1996, it dreamed up a larger project. But financial constraints limited the scope of the initial project, and the seven-story hotel that it eventually built and opened in 1998 encompassed 350,000 sq. ft. and 376 rooms.

Now, a new 24-story, $77 million addition, rising adjacent to the existing hotel, will complete the vision. The project is slated for completion in August.

"We are gratified that the expansion is happening under the right circumstances, on our own terms, when we wanted it to happen," said Jason Muss, a principal at Muss Development and son of Joshua Muss, the CEO and president who spearheaded the initial development.

The existing hotel on Adams Street in downtown Brooklyn is part of the 1.5-million-sq.-ft. Renaissance Plaza development, which includes 900,000 sq. ft. of office space and a parking garage with 11,000 spaces. That infrastructure gave the hotel an early boost, said Sam Ibrahim, general manager for the hotel.

"The Brooklyn Marriott met with instant success when it opened," he added.

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Ibrahim also credits the property's proximity to Manhattan and features such as the fourth-largest ballroom in the city as key ingredients in the hotel's positive performance.

Still, the hotel was hamstrung from using the full capacity of its meeting facilities because it could not accommodate large groups that needed 400 to 500 rooms for their conferences.

"We cannot use every room in the facility for large groups and thus disappoint our loyal local customers," Jason Muss said. "By adding the rooms, we are basically allowing the hotel general manager and staff to use the hotel in the best way possible."

The new 190,000-sq.-ft. addition will include 282 guest rooms, as well as meeting rooms and a concierge lounge on the top floor that doubles as a party room. The lounge, which includes two outdoor balconies, offers spectacular views of Manhattan and the surrounding area. Two below-grade stories will house retail space and conference support for the facility.

The addition takes up a lot that had contained a city-owned parking garage, which the developer demolished. Excavation of the site required some shoring of adjacent structures but was otherwise routine, Muss said.

The new poured-in-place concrete building sits upon a traditional mat foundation. The exterior of the first three floors will be clad in limestone, while the higher floors will have exterior insulating finish system panels. The EIFS panels, made from polystyrene foam board with a textured acrylic finish, aim to resemble a limestone finish by mixing ground limestone into the mix, said Don Sandy, design architect and chairman emeritus of SB Architects of San Francisco, the project's architect.

Muss said windows are installed into the EIFS panels at the factory, and finished panels are welded onto the building at the jobsite. A Muss affiliate served as general contractor on the project.

The "postage stamp"-sized lot dictated the design, calling for a tall, thin building with each guest floor housing 16 rooms, Sandy said. He designed the structure to serve as a transition between classic architecture on one side of the structure and the modern Renaissance Plaza complex, with the existing Marriott, on the other side.

"The exterior takes a modern classical approach with solid materials rather than glass curtain wall," Sandy added.

A two-story pedestrian bridge will link the new addition to the existing hotel, crossing above the promenade leading to Metrotech, a nearby office complex in Downtown Brooklyn. Sandy said he drew his inspiration for the bridge from the art nouveau style of the subway entrance at Union Square in Manhattan.

"It just dawned on me, why shouldn't we make this a park-like bridge out of metal, replicating the medium green color of the subway entrance," Sandy said.

The first level of the bridge connects the lobby of the existing hotel to the addition. The second level of the bridge will be used for service functions.

The contractor team topped out the structure in March, and in spring, the construction team was installing exterior panels and working on the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing hookups within the structure.

"We contemplated this addition when we built the original Renaissance Plaza," Muss said. "Structural, mechanical, and service items were predesigned and installed into the original building. The utilities for the addition connect to the existing base building underneath the structure."

The new building also has a gearless Otis Gen2 elevator system, which does not use a machine room. Instead, its machine and controller are installed at the top of the hoistway, Muss said.

"Only two buildings in New York have these systems," he added. "It has been a good system for us, so we are going with it again."

All the new rooms in the hotel will take advantage of Marriott's latest design innovations, including 32-in., flat-panel TVs, bathrooms with enhanced natural lighting and round shower stalls, and tiled entry foyers.

"We are also going to be redoing all our existing rooms to dovetail with what we are doing in the tower," Muss said.

The construction effort is not disrupting services at the hotel, Muss said. Heavy work on the site generally takes place during the middle of the day, when most guests are out of their rooms. Also, most of the existing hotel rooms are located on the north side of Renaissance Plaza, while the new addition is located on the south side of the complex.

"We have been able to maintain business levels and everything is operating as usual," he added.

Key Players

Owner: Muss Development, New York

Architect: SB Architects, San Francisco

Contractor: Muss Brooklyn Development Corp., New York

Structural Engineer: Wayman C. Wing, New York

Site, M-E-P Engineer: Lehr International Associates, New York