Report: Two new Center City hotels will have a combined 755 rooms

The planned W and Element hotels at 15th and Chestnut streets will have a total of 755 rooms and include more than 1,700 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, according to information an attorney working on the project provided to PlanPhilly.

Developer Brook Lenfest is set to make a presentation to the Center City Residents Association for information purposes only, as the site requires no zoning variances to built the project.

There will be 295 rooms in the four-star W Hotel, and 460 rooms in the three-star, extended-stay Element by Westin. Both hotels will be managed by Starwood, a Connecticut-based hospitality company. Here is more from PlanPhilly.

The site, on the northeast corner of the intersection, jutting up against the back of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, is currently used as a parking lot.

“On the Monopoly board, even on Park Place, only one hotel can be placed on a property,” the Center City Residents Association wrote in a newsletter on Friday. “But the developers at 1441 Chestnut, currently a parking lot south of the Condos at the Ritz, must have picked up one of those bonus cards, like the one that reads ‘Your building loan matures - collect $150.’”

Of course it wasn’t actually a Monopoly card; it was a tax-incentive package. Last year, City Council approved a $33 million Tax Increment Financing (TIF) package for the project.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal