The $29 million conversion of the Hilton hotel into a downsized hotel and apartments above it created challenges that went far beyond having separate entrances off Trumbull Street.
That was the least of it.
Hot water and electrical systems that once served 393 hotel rooms were divided to serve the new configuration of 170 guest rooms and 147 apartments. An alarm system couldn’t be divided so a management plan had to be worked out. And elevators had to be reprogrammed to delineate space for hotel guests and apartment dwellers.
“The big challenge — a lot of it was a learning curve,” said John DelGrosso, vice president of construction at the Waterford Hotel Group, which has owned the Hilton Hartford since 2005. “I’m looking forward to getting to the finish line.”
The conversion of the downtown, 22-story hotel is expected to be completed in March, after about a year of construction, with apartment preleasing expected soon after that.
The project is wrapping up about a year later than first expected, delayed by the pandemic-induced back-up in delivery of construction materials and the city’s permitting and inspections, hampered by short staffing.
The combination of uses such as a hotel and apartments is new for downtown Hartford, though not in larger cities such as neighboring New York and Boston. But Hartford could see more mixing of uses, especially as it grapples with an overabundance of office space in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The Hilton Hartford was a dire example of the pandemic’s fallout. Already sorely in need of updates prior to COVID-19, the hotel became financially strapped as business and travel dwindled to nearly nothing. An attempt to sell the hotel was unsuccessful, and it faced imminent closure at the end of 2021.
Former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said he would have preferred to keep the entire hotel open. The rooms would be needed to attract conventions, sporting events and other meetings as the city emerged from the pandemic.
But Bronin said it would be far worse to have the hotel close, concerned that it would be extremely difficult to reopen, giving the investment that would be needed.
A rescue plan with $11 million in state-taxpayer back loans from the Capital Region Development Authority was crafted, dividing the public funds between the hotel downsizing and the new apartments paved the way for the conversion. Waterford formed a partnership with Randy Salvatore of Stamford-based RMS Cos. for the apartment conversion on floors 12 through 22.
Salvatore was already a high-profile developer in Hartford, taking on the nearby North Crossing apartment development around Dunkin’ Park.
On a tour of the Hilton project this week, Salvatore said combining hotel rooms and apartments was new territory for him.
“I’m from a residential point of view, so you want to keep everything as separate as possible for the tenant,” Salvatore said. “Whereas, a hotel — you’re not doing that. With a hotel, you’ve got one bill because the hotel owner is paying it. So, it’s a lot of working together,”
When the apartments debut later this winter, they will be known as “The Revel,” a name that is intended to evoke a cutting-edge feel.
The apartments carved out the former guestrooms will be more modest in size than rentals elsewhere downtown. A studio, for instance, was fashioned out of a single guest room, while one- and two-bedroom units were formed by combining hotel rooms.
Despite their size, Salvatore said the rooms are paired with ample amenities that replace former meeting space. Those include a fitness area with state-of-the-art workout equipment, co-working and entertainment spaces, and an area where tenants can host a larger gathering of friends or family. A laundry room with lounge area was added because washers and dryers were not included in the apartments to conserve on space.
“That’s where we think our niche is, that we’re providing everything that someone needs to live in an apartment,” Salvatore said. “They just don’t have a extensive amount of space within their dwelling unit, but they have it in the amenities.”
The apartments will primarily be studios, one- and two-bedroom units.
The studios range in size from 294 to 329 square feet, with estimated monthly market-rate rents between $1,250 and $1,340. This compares with the average studio size of 488 square feet in downtown Hartford and a monthly rent of $1,434, according to apartmentfinder.com.
Overall, the apartment sizes range from 294 to 1,269 square feet, the largest unit being the sole three-bedroom rental. Estimated monthly market-rate rents are expected to be between $1,250 and $2,900. A $25 monthly amenity fee is planned and parking will be in the nearby Church Street garage, operated by CRDA. Details of the parking, including monthly fees, are still being worked out.
Plans call for 20% of the rentals to be leased at below market-rate rents as affordable housing based on income guidelines
Salvatore also hopes to capitalize on the views from atop the structure, just north of the XL Center arena. From the 22nd floor, a rental facing east has views across downtown to the Connecticut River and beyond.
The apartments include stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops and LVT plank flooring.
Salvatore is optimistic about leasing, expecting the majority of apartments to be occupied in about a year.
The apartments at The Revel will be the latest to come up for leasing in Hartford, where more than 3,000 rentals have been added in and around downtown in the last decade. Occupancy remains robust in the new projects, often 90% or better. Bronin urged the addition of an additional 5,000 housing units in the coming years to strike a better balance between residential and office space downtown to better support the ecosystem of restaurant, bars and other businesses.
Even as the project nears completion, there is still about 25,000 square feet on the second and third floors that is still available. The majority is old meeting room space that could be used for new event space, or perhaps by a university.
Salvatore pointed out that the University of Connecticut’s downtown Hartford campus recently disclosed expansion plans, leasing office space above the neighboring XL Center arena.
The downsized hotel will be renamed DoubleTree, also a Hilton brand.
All the remaining rooms have been gutted and completely renovated. Some guests booking a stay at the Hilton in recent months have been assigned renovated rooms, giving them an early peek at the project.
Waterford said the room colors and textures are inspired by Hartford landmarks. They include the pedestrian walkway connecting Constitution Plaza with the riverfront, with its cantilevered steel towers and cables as a geometric form; the natural elements of the historic State Capitol and exterior texture of the Hilton itself.
A blue accent wall is laced with what could be puffy clouds or breakers on the Connecticut River.
On the tour, Waterford Hotel Group president Michael Heaton notes that the majority bathtubs have been replaced with walk-in showers, increasingly sought by hotel guests industrywide.
He spots an old, off-white phone on a nightstand.
“That is getting swapped out for a black one,” Heaton said.
Waterford says it remains upbeat about the competitive power of a fully renovated hotel — though now half the size — to attract bookings. The renovation also includes a new lobby — smaller because an entrance for The Revel apartments had to be carved out — and a new fitness center.
The number of hotel rooms in Hartford also has shrunk with the conversion of the Radisson near Dunkin’ Park and the Homewood Suites on Asylum Street into housing.
Still, the hotel industry overall still faces an uphill climb.
Waterford’s chairman and chief executive Len Wolman said, in a separate interview after the tour, that leisure travel in the U.S. surged in 2022, but it moderated in 2023 as international travel regained strength. And it’s not clear whether leisure travel will see, at least in the foreseeable future, the levels in 2022, Wolman said.
Business travel, Wolman said, continues to lag. But business travel made some gains in 2023 — enough so to offset some of the decline in leisure travel — but it is still not back at pre-pandemic levels.
But Wolman said there are reasons to be optimistic for Hartford’s new DoubleTree. Events are picking up in the city; major improvements at the XL Center may come to pass that would attract more hotel bookings; more companies are urging employees to spend more time in the office; and a recent published report noted that the new president of Hartford-based health insurer Aetna, owned by CVS Health Corp., is committed to maintaining a presence in Hartford.
“Those are all things that are very, very positive and make us optimistic — the commitment that you have from companies like Travelers and Cigna and then Hartford Healthcare and what is happening in the health care field as well as the start-up field,” Wolman said. “They is a lot of really good stuff happening in Hartford and the Hartford area.”
“But,” Wolman said, “we are still in recovery.”
Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.
