News
GREEN BIG APPLE: Sustainable Snoozing
August 8, 2011
| Itching for a hotel stay, but without the green guilt? (Yeah, you, Mr. Change-Sheets-Daily.) Well, last week, Marriott International and Troutbrook Co opened the guilt-free 133-room Fairfield Inn & Suites in Brooklyn. |
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| The lodging industry and guests demand social responsibility within hotels, says Troutbrook principal Marc Freud (with chairman Bill Marriott— Marriott International is driving sustainable efforts in all its assets). Among the boutique hotel’s features: the INNCOM energy management system, which senses when a guest is in a room and automatically adjusts the thermostat, Marc explains. An infrared device can also detect not-so-much movement—like a snoozing guest—and keep the temp constant. (♫ It sees you when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake... ♪) Troutbrook incorporated many LEED standards into the development, including energy efficient appliances, low-VOC paints, and LED lighting. |
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| The 12-story hotel (at 181 3rd Ave) was also built to take on a co-gen unit in the near future, creating electricity for the building from the hot water used by the guests and laundry machines (clean and green). Marc says this will likely be a capital improvement next year. And operations are already off to a great start. “The Brooklyn market has surprising strength,” he says; rates have jumped 25% on certain weeknights, and he expects them to climb to $249/night (king) and $279/night (double) by fall, pumped by international travelers taking advantage of a weak dollar. But if it weren’t for Marriott being a top-three hotelier, financing would've been difficult, Marc tells us. |
