Gilbert the Hotelier

[Lowell]

While digging into the preparations of the Book Tower coming on line and the conversion of several floors into a hotel in the Book Tower thread, I came across this description in Crain's of Gilberts growing role as a hotel owner.

The fourth through eighth floors of the Book Tower on Washington Boulevard downtown are in the process of being turned into 118 Roost Apartment Hotel studio, one- and two-bedroom units that will be managed by Philadelphia-based Method Co., Dan Gilbert's Detroit-based Bedrock LLC real estate development, management and leasing company said Tuesday morning.

Roost also becomes part of Gilbert's growing portfolio of downtown hotel properties, joining the Shinola Hotel on Woodward Avenue and the Courtyard by Marriott property on Jefferson Avenue, plus a series of other buildings and developments that are targeted for hotel use in the future, including the former site of the J.L. Hudson's department store and the former Detroit Police Department headquarters on Beaubien Street.

[401don]

Plus the Roost Hotel opening in Cleveland.

[Gistok]

I'm a bit confused by the location of the new hotel? The beautiful 3 story atrium is not in the tower portion of the building, but in the older 13 story Book Building...

https://www.detroityes.com/mb/attach...4&d=1629901543

... although this link doesn't say that. When they built the Tower in 1926, there was little more than a small elevator lobby in that part of the building... connected via a hallway to the larger more imposing lobby of the Book Building portion of the complex.

That in turn makes me wonder if a 118 room hotel would fit in the smaller 4 story footprint of the Book Tower, versus 4 stories of the large ample floors of the Book Building. I may of course be wrong... but newspapers don't always get everything right.

[NSortzi]

The hotel is in a few floors of both buildings. The Book Building floor plates extend into the tower. They’d just have designated elevators for hotel use in the lobby.