NEW YORK— Four Points by Sheraton plans to expand throughout New York this year. The brand will open its first New York City hotel in the Chelsea area this summer, and has signed an agreement to add a Plainview property as well. “We just signed an agreement to bring Four Points to Plainview,” the brand’s Senior VP/Brand Manager Hoyt Harper told HOTEL BUSINESS®. “The deal was just signed last week so specifics cannot be released as yet, but the brand will have a Plainview presence.” This location will bring Four Points’ New York total to five. At present the brand has three hotels open and operational: a 465-room Four Points by Sheraton Rochester; a 292-room Four Points by Sheraton Buffalo Airport; and a 189-room Four Points by Sheraton Niagara Falls. The 21-story, 158-room Chelsea property is under construction at the south side of West 25th St. between 6th and 7th Avenues. The Chelsea project “signals a real change in direction for the brand because it’s our first Four Points in a major urban market,” said Harper. “We think that bringing the brand to New York City will give it a greater level of visibility and get developers excited about it going forward.” Since the brand’s inception in the mid-1990s it has grown mostly through conversions in secondary markets, according to Harper. However, in the future Four Points will be coming to prime urban markets, convention sites and airport destinations like New York City. “The Four Points brand was designed to compete with brands like Hilton Garden Inn, Holiday Inn Select and Courtyard [by Marriott],” Harper said. “Our strategy is to grow through conversions and renovations, with select new builds. “Four Points is an outgrowth of an earlier failed project that began in 1992, which attempted to separate the Sheraton brand from Sheraton Motor Inns,” he continued. “We wanted to make clear designations in our two brands with the Sheraton brand to compete in the upscale market and Four Points to compete in the first tier of the midscale market.” There are currently 143 Four Points, 23 of which are located outside of the United States in places like France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Columbia, the Middle East, according to Harper. He hopes to add 40 domestic properties by year-end 2004. “We are undersized compared to a Courtyard, for example,” Harper said, “As a result, in the next five years we hope to double in size domestically. Internationally, the brand will have somewhere between 100 and 150 hotels in the same time period.”
Hoyt Harper