New hotel openings

Published December 30, 2014 by Virginia Business

Several new hotels have opened in Virginia recently or are in the pipeline. They include:

In Richmond:

• A Courtyard by Marriott and a Residence Inn , both of which opened in December at the First Freedom Center complex. The hotels add nearly 200 rooms to the downtown inventory and were developed by Apple REIT Cos. as part of an unusual joint venture with the nonprofit First Freedom Center museum. The museum itself is slated to open on Jan. 16.
• A Hampton Inn & Suites/Homewood Suites at 700 E. Main St., opening sometime this summer. These Shamin hotels will add 244 rooms to downtown.
• A hotel at 201 W. Broad St., potentially opening in time for the UCI Road World Championships cycling event in September (see story above). Local businessman Ted Ukrop is converting a six-story 100-year-old, 43,855-square-foot former department store into a boutique hotel.

In Northern Virginia: 

• Tysons will be getting an 18-story, 300-room Hyatt Regency. According to the general manager, Dan Amato, the hotel — scheduled to open in March — will include 15,000 square feet of meeting space and ready access to an elevated plaza, 300 stores at Tysons shopping center and a Silver line Metro stop. “It’s the best location in Tysons,” he says.
• A 159-room Hampton Inn & Suites in Falls Church, opening in November.
• Several other hotels are part of the plans for mixed-use projects in and around the new Metro silver line stations that opened in July.

In Hampton Roads:

• A $40-plus million renovation of the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach, to be completed in 2016.
• A 274-room Hilton in Norfolk, scheduled to open in spring 2017. The hotel is part of a $126 million convention center hotel project, which broke ground last spring.
• A 94-room Hampton Inn in Suffolk, to open in spring.

Elsewhere:

• A $4 million renovation of the 156-room Natural Bridge Hotel, to be completed in 2016.
• A new 117-room Hilton Garden Inn opened in Roanoke County at the South Peak development in November. The $15 million property offers a conference space, a fitness center, business center and pool.