David Whitney Building set to rebrand

[hybridy]

https://detroit.urbanize.city/post/d...llection-hotel

The Roxbury Group announced today that the David Whitney Building will rebrand as an Autograph Collection Hotel.

Over the next year and a half, 136 guest rooms will be renovated andtwo more hotel floors will be added, for a total of 160 guest rooms and suites. 24 of the building's apartments will be converted to hotel suites

Wonder what's keeping them from renting out those units? Lack of amenities?

[Gistok]

If I were renting an apartment or even staying at the hotel, I don't think I would want to have a view only of the light well. There are about 1/4 of the rooms/residences on each floor without an exterior view.

[cmubryan]

https://detroit.urbanize.city/post/d...llection-hotel





Wonder what's keeping them from renting out those units? Lack of amenities?

Overall good news! It's not everyday you hear of a hotel upgrading with a fancier flag in Detroit.

[Burnsie]

Will the David Whitney name actually be removed? It's reasonable to take that conclusion from reading "David Whitney Building set to rebrand." Probably it's simply just the hotel switching names, but these days I can never tell if the writing should be taken literally or if it's just sloppy.

[K-slice]

The Building is in a historic district so they would need to get permission to take down the signage and essentially re-name the building. Good luck with that.

I read it as just the hotel is changing names.

[EastsideAl]

I had a close friend who stayed there when she was in town covering one of the Tigers' opponents. The room she had was pretty nice, with a large double-paned low-noise window facing directly out onto Woodward with a view into Comerica Park. It did feel strange to be looking out on a piece of Woodward that I had traversed jillions of times as a younger person, and to be in a hotel room that so clearly had been an office in a building where my father had worked for several years.

But the management was a bit slipshod, with an understaffed - albeit very friendly - front desk and valet parking service where there were often long waits, and sometimes indifferent or non-existent maid service. And despite the large bank of elevators at the back of the lobby, there was only one of them that seemed to be used for the hotel, with the rest either out of service or serving the residential floors.

But it is a very nice and very beautiful property, with a lot to recommend it to out of town guests, so I hope that new management can do just a bit better by it.

[Atticus]

Rebrand simply means “change brand”. The journalist used the correct wording.

Marriott International has 30 some hotel chains under its portfolio. One is “Aloft”, the current brand. Another is “Autograph Collection”, what the hotel is being converted to.

Basically, new interior room decor, a few functional changes to the lobby. But the only exterior change is likely the removal of any place you see “Aloft”, and that wording now being the Autograph Collection brand. The David Whitney sign and exterior architecture of the building isn’t changing.