HB ON THE SCENE: Kushner Enters The Hospitality Fray With Converted Hotel

LIVINGSTON, NJ— After a 45-minute drive out of the hustle and bustle of New York into a more calm, and inviting setting here in the Garden State, Kushner Companies unveiled its first hotel investment, The Westminster, as part of a hard-hat tour designed to give insiders their first look at the property. In entering the hospitality world with this development, Kushner created a new hospitality arm called Westminster Hospitality Group to manage the new hotel as well as future hotels. The company said it spent in excess of $25 million to take the site of an old Travelodge here and turn it into what it’s marketing as a 192-room, 10-suite luxury, independent hotel with a club floor. This phrasing is important in understanding what Kushner is trying to accomplish because the passerby will not see a branded flag flying high as the company intends to go it alone and build a reputation around the Westminster name and the quality of service that will be offered once the hotel is completed. “The Westminster name is well known in this area and carries a lot of weight that we hope to play on,” Kushner COO Stewart Epstein told HOTEL BUSINESS®. “In a short time we believe people will forget that the Travelodge ever existed. “Before we took up this project we looked at the local marketplace and realized that we could fill an underserved niche,” he continued. “In developing this project we wanted to position ourselves between the Short Hills Hilton, a high-end destination hotel, and the lower- to mid-level hotels on the other end. When the doors open we’re planning to have a product that is in scarce supply in this area.” In fact, those doors will open in January 2003, but much interior construction still remains. At present after one enters the building a large cavity filled with assorted construction workers, dust and scaffolding exists today. The entrance wall is adorned with glass and an expansive skylight rests overhead to allow for a street view and maximum light entry, which was the strategy implemented to fill the before mentioned niche. Specifically, the corporate plan is to create a quality hotel that will attract both the local resident and the on-the-go businessperson by designing a homier, inviting destination. One way Kushner is trying to accomplish this end is by the configuration of the lobby, which features a minibar and a direct entrance to the Strip House restaurant that will seat 120 and operate onsite. “When designing the lobby it was important to us that it not have a mausoleum feel,” stated Michael Linczyc, vp of design and development at the newly formed Westminster Hospitality Group. “What I mean is that we didn’t want a big round table in the center of the room with a huge flower display on top in a very hush-hush, quiet environment. In most places a good hotel is judged based upon how quickly it can get its patrons in and out, but you won’t find that atmosphere here. We want the local resident to come in off the street and frequent the restaurant, meet friends in the lounge and use our hall for their major parties, events and such, as well as cater to the business traveler.” In fact, the flexible configuration transcends the design of the entire hotel. Because the hotel is strategically seated in an area with a lot of fortune 500 companies and pharmaceutical giants, the ballroom is able to host large meetings and still be used for the social business that would come in from the local resident. To this end, the ballroom has a private entrance with valet parking, electronic flat screen reader boards as you come in to acquaint you with what’s going on in the ballroom and the hotel at large, private coat check services, and private restrooms. In addition, the 8,000-sf room can be divided into three sections because there are no pillars to obstruct each section. Each of those sections is equipped with roll-down plasma screens that are touch sensitive with wireless Internet access built in to cate