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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 2 0 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 15 HOTELS Let Us Help You Navigate A New Future workforcealliance.biz/business-services Workforce Alliance is the workforce development board serving 30 towns in South Central Connecticut. challenge for the firm, he added. "We look for projects where we have an opportunity to transform historic buildings or urban sites and adapt them to the market needs." e market needs more hotels that satisfy the growing urge for sus- tainable design and travel, Becker said. e 165-room Hotel Marcel New Haven planned for the Pirelli building would be LEED Platinum, the highest ranking possible for green building design. It is also being planned as the first-ever hotel certified under "passive house" standards, meaning the hotel will cut its energy use dramatically with a "very well-insulated, high-per- formance envelope" in addition to solar panels, Becker said. ere has been talk for decades about repurposing the building, but Becker and his partners on Sept. 30 officially began construction. e asbestos has been removed and interiors are being retrofitted, with a finish date tentatively set for the end of next summer. Hilton has agreed to include the Marcel in its Hilton Tapestry Collection, marketed as "a gathering of original upscale hotels that cater to guests seeking reliability and value in their independent hotel choices." Even with the national endorsement, however, Becker is realistic about the marketplace that the new hotel will face in 2021. "I'm not expecting the market to be strong when we open; we sort of factored that in," Becker said. On the brink Hopes for a rebound in hospital- ity may come too late for older and heavily indebted hotel properties, said Kozlowski of the Connecticut Lodging Association. An August report by Trepp found that 23.4 percent of hotels nationwide were 30 or more days delinquent on their loans, signaling a possible future wave of foreclosures. Homewood Suites by Hilton in Hartford closed down early in the pandemic only to reopen this fall as a short-term apartment building. Hilton's flagship hotel in downtown Hartford was set to go on the auc- tion block in November aer laying off 124 employees. In New Haven, the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale repeatedly delayed its reopening aer shutting down when COVID-19 hit and told the labor department in September that it was extending furloughs for 170 workers. Hotels like the Omni across the state that depended on trade shows and con- ference business are hurting badly, Kozlowski said. e pandemic is also acceler- ating trends like remote work and virtual conferencing that may mean permanent shis in the hospital- ity industry, said Matiatos of the Lodging Association and Courtyard by Marriott. "You may see less overall travel," Matiatos said. "We're going to hear more closings over the next couple of months for sure." Matiatos himself has had to lay off more than half of the Court- yard's 70 employees in New Haven, although he was able to bring some workers back in August. With travel still in a slump, he said he was try- ing not to make predictions about the immediate future. "Each month is a great unknown as we work through this," Matiatos said. "None of us want to open and increase our business at the risk of others. is is a long game for us." n Developer Bruce Becker is turning New Haven's former Pirelli Building into a 165-room boutique hotel.

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