They’re trying to bring a little hospitality to this inhospitable Gravesend block.
Developers are planning to erect a four-story hotel next to a rail yard, a cement silo, and an auto body shop on an industrial strip of W. 13th Street in Gravesend. But respite-seekers shouldn’t expect to get much shut-eye on the manufacturing-zoned, dead-end block, a local worker said.
“It’s very noisy,” said Brooklyn Motors auto-body worker Allan, who but declined to give his last name. “There’s a train yard over there, so there’s going to be trains coming in and out at night. There’s a body shop, cement trucks, and they start work pretty early. So if they want to sleep in, that’s not the best place,” he said.
Long Island developer Grovesend Realty LLC aims to build a four-story, 59-room hotel on W. 13th Street near Avenue Z, plans filed with the city on Dec. 23 show. A basement level will include a breakfast room and storage, records show. The news was first reported by real estate blog Yimby.
Developers filed the plans just over a month after Mayor DeBlasio announced he was seeking a moratorium on hotels in areas zoned for industry.
The new hotel will rise higher than surrounding buildings, save a cement factory silo, and give tourist unparalleled views — of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Coney Island Rail Yard and the nearby Shore Parkway, Allan said.
“It’s definitely going to be a bad view, all they’re going to see are train tracks,” he said.
The distance separating the planned lodge and the rail yard is less than a football field, but patrons will have to walk half a mile to get to the nearest subway station, city maps show.
This isn’t the first hotel to come to south Gravesend’s industrial sprawl. The new development will offer some competition to the nearby Sleep Inn on Stillwell Avenue between Avenue Z and Shore Parkway — local workers could only guess what competition they’re vying for.
“I don’t understand why they’re building another hotel here when there’s a Sleep Inn on the corner,” said a man who worked nearby. “It’s a really crappy neighborhood. This doesn’t make any sense.”
The developer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
— with Louise Wateridge
