DUMBO mega-developers David and Jed Walentas will open their long-stalled luxury hotel in Williamsburg next spring — with a hot new restaurant by the man behind Diner and Marlow & Sons.
The Wythe — as the hotel is tentatively being called — will feature a ground-floor eatery by local restaurateur Andrew Tarlow, Jed Walentas revealed on Tuesday.
“From the beginning, we wanted the people involved in the project to also be part of the neighborhood,” he said at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable, a quarterly gathering of the borough’s properati.
The former textile factory near N. 11th Street will feature 72 rooms starting at about $200 a night, a sixth-story roof bar and 60-seat screening room. It’s across from popular music venue Brooklyn Bowl in an industrial area between the waterfront and McCarren Park that’s quickly being turning into a major tourism destination.
“We’ve never done this before, and it’s a bit of a risk,” said Walentas, whose company, Two Trees Management, is best known for transforming DUMBO into a polished yuppie enclave, though the company also transformed the old Board of Education headquarters into a luxury residential building in Downtown.
The Wythe will be the Walentases’ first property in North Brooklyn, jump-started by $15 million in federal stimulus funds in 2010. Initially, the family sought to double the brick building’s height, but the city rejected that scheme.
Ward Dennis, co-chair of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, lauded the reconfigured hotel — even though he doubted the $200 a night reservation would be affordable for many people in the area.
“It’s an interesting design for a fantastic historic building,” Dennis said. “It provides a lot of service jobs for the neighborhood and it’s better than having the building vacant.”
The hotel is a block away from the just-opened Hotel Williamsburg, a six-story competitor on N. 12th Street near Bedford Avenue.
Minnesota-based Graves World Hospital built that 64-unit inn — featuring a pool and rooftop bar — as part of its luxury condo complex.
Reach Kate Briquelet at kbriquelet@cnglocal.com or by calling her at (718) 260-2511.