Grande owner developing Parkview plan

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Dec 03, 2004 by Rombel, Adam

SYRACUSE - Hotel developer and owner of The Genesee Grande Norman Swanson has another hotel in the works. Swanson has closed his 45-room Executive Quarters extended-stay hotel at 713 E. Genesee St. and is renovating and restructuring the entire six-story, 40,000-square-foot building into an 83room. establishment he has named Parkview Hotel.

The new boutique hotel, scheduled to open in May after the approximately $3million construction project is complete, will provide "luxury" amenities to business travelers and other clients but with limited service (there will be no hotel restaurant, for example). And the rooms will be priced in the $79 to $99 range per night, putting the hotel's prices below those of downtown competitors.

"It will be very elegant in design but limited in services. We're going with the limited service so we can keep our prices below all the other downtown hotels," Swanson says.

Parkview Hotel, named for its location across from Forman Park, will target business travelers, groups, and government employees on tight, per-diem budgets.

"This particular market-price range is so good. All the other hotels already exceed the daily, per-diem for many federal or state travelers," Swanson says.

The hotel's rooms will be about 400 square feet each, comparable to or larger than the rooms found at downtown competitors such as The Marx Hotel and Sheraton University Hotel, and will feature upscale furniture, carpeting, and designs. Every room will have high-speed Internet access and the common areas will have wireless-Internet capabilities. While there will be no restaurant; the new hotel will have a coffee shop, similar to, say, a Starbucks, Swanson says. And the hotel will offer shuttle service to and from the airport.

Swanson's Woodbine Group is handling the construction of Parkview Hotel. The entire interior of the building is being gutted and redone, including new plumbing, heating, and air conditioning.

Swanson's daughter, Charity Swanson Buchicka of Elan Interiors, will design, the room interiors. She also designed The Genesee Grande rooms.

Syracuse-based marketing and advertising firm, Cowley Associates, is preparing a marketing campaign and Web site for the new hotel. Swanson expects to start marketing it in February.

The project will be financed internally, with no loans or outside investors needed, Swanson says.

Executive Quarters, which Swanson opened in 1979, was closed Nov. 1. "The building needed to be reformatted and redone. After 25 years, things and concepts get tired," says Swanson. "[Executive Quarters] was doing well. It was just a tired concept. From a competitive point of view, it needed updating."

He notes that for the first 10 years of its existence, Executive Quarters was the only extended-stay hotel in the Syracuse market. Now, there are a number of hotels - such as Marriott Residence Inn in East Syracuse, Homewood Suites Hilton in Liverpool, and Candlewood Suites in North Syracuse - that cater to this type of traveler. By Swanson's count, there are more than 800 extended-stay suites in the Syracuse market.

Executive Quarters occupied about half the building, while medical offices took up the rest.