Five Reasons Why Brooklyn Is Bursting With New Hotels

Undisputedly, Manhattan is the borough of hotels, but it might not be long before Brooklyn is bringing up the rear. While some may still conflate the borough's short-term stay scene with reviews from its most wanting hotels, like Red Hook's Brooklyn Motor Inn whose TripAdvisor reviewers snub it as "very simple, filthy, and loud," and a "rathole," hotels like Williamsburg's lauded Wythe are becoming more and more common throughout the borough. The Observer took a look at why this is happening, and it isn't just because of the borough's residential popularity. Here are a few reasons:

1) Hotels are not coming to the borough because of its residential surge. Why, then? Hotelier Richard Born passed on investing in the Wythe when Williamsburg was still, well, Williamsburg, but is now developing a Pod Hotel on nearby North 4th Street. Behind Born's change of heart? Born noticed that guests at his Manhattan Pod's were using the hotels' iPads to look up how to get to, and what to do in Brooklyn. In short, Brooklyn became a tourist destination.

2) Prior to hotels like the Wythe—which, by the way, is backed by brazen Dumbo developer Jed Walentas—there was no precedent for boutique properties in the neighborhood and borough alike, making it a gamble for investors. Six months after the hotel's opening, the Times called the Wythe, now an international hipster destination, "the darling of the Brooklyn hotel scene," solidifying its role as the leader of the pack, and okaying other ambitious boutique projects.

3) While hotels like Sheraton and Aloft are proliferating, especially in area's like Downtown Brooklyn's Duffield Street, boutique hotels like Sunset Park's Hotel BPM are becoming increasingly viable.

4) There are some 29 hotels with 2,600 rooms in the works. Maybe the looming threat possibility of the borough hosting the 2016 Democratic National Convention, which will bring 30,000-plus people to the city, will help ramp-up production. The media attention from the bid alone will bring the borough even more to the national forefront as a tourist destination. As of now, the borough has some 4,300 hotel rooms. Airbnb, anybody?

5) Hotels don't only have to be for those traveling. The bonkers Level Hotel coming to Williamsburg will have 19 stories of hotel balancing on ten stories of office space. Between the stilted hotel and office space will be a garden, accessible to the whole community. How nice.
· Brooklyn's Long Suffering Hotel Scene Finally Catches Up [NYO]
· Mapping The Many Hotels of Williamsburg Present and Future [Curbed]
· Here Now, Readers Share Their Hotel Horror Stories [Curbed]