Navy Yard Marriott hotel to add more rooms

Philadelphia's hotel inventory is about to get larger after one of the city's Marriott hotels builds additional rooms.

The 172-room Courtyard Philadelphia South at the Navy Yard, located at 1001 Intrepid Ave., opened in 2014 to become the Navy Yard's first and only hotel, and it's set for expansion.

The hotel, by Marriott International ( NASDAQ: MAR), will undergo an expansion that will add an additional 40 guest rooms, putting its total key count at 212 once construction is complete.

"This addition will easily accommodate visitor demand in the Philadelphia Navy Yard," Marriott told the Philadelphia Business Journal in an email. "The Navy Yard has recently re-emerged as one of the region’s most important locations for work and play alike, and the Courtyard Philadelphia South looks forward to an exciting future."

The 1,200-acre Navy Yard is home to more than 150 companies, including Urban Outfitters and AlliedBarton Security Services.

The hotel rooms are scheduled to be completed by late April.

Walker & Dunlop Commercial Property Funding, a direct lending platform by Maryland-based Walker & Dunlop Inc. (NYSE: WD), structured and closed the $10 million mezzanine loan for the hotel room expansion.

"We are very pleased to have been able to navigate through the complexity of the existing mortgages and structure subordinate financing in a way that allows the property to be expanded and achieve its potential," said Geoff Smith, managing director and head of originations at WDCPF.

The Courtyard Marriott, considered a business hotel, has locations in and around Philadelphia, including Conshohocken and in Center City next to the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The Crowne Plaza Philadelphia West on City Avenue this year completed a $15 million propertywide renovation and rebranding that converted it into Courtyard Philadelphia City Avenue.

The City Avenue hotel is a hybrid; the Crowne Plaza was a full-service hotel with meeting space, while the Courtyard concept is limited service. The hotel maintained the meeting spaces, which would be marketed more heavily, General Manager Addy Maini told the Philadelphia Business Journal in an earlier interview.

The conversion from a Crowne Plaza into a Courtyard strengthened Marriott’s footprint in the region, joining the more than 70 hotels already under Marriott’s lineup in the area.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal