Retailer West Elm's first hotel will debut in Detroit next
year, while the company announced plans for an Oakland, Calif., property for
2020.
Speaking at the Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association
conference in New York on Wednesday, David Bowd, principal of Experience West
Elm, confirmed that the first hotel under the brand, which is a division of
Williams Sonoma, will be in Detroit. The 120-room hotel will be in the city's
Midtown district.
West Elm previously said that its first hotel would open in
either Detroit or Savannah, Georgia.
"We're going Midtown when everyone else is going
downtown," Bowd said of the Detroit property. "It's such an amazing
city, and it's deserving of better things."
West Elm also announced Wednesday that a hotel will open in
Oakland in 2020. The 150-room hotel will be built in a structure using a 1910s
Beaux Arts façade of a building that was originally built as an automobile
showroom. The hotel will be adjacent to a mixed-use project called the Hive,
which will have 105 residential units and 100,000 square feet of offices.
West Elm, which announced the hotel brand last year, also
has hotels under development in Charlotte, Indianapolis and Minneapolis. Bowd,
who classified West Elm as "a millennial brand," said the guestrooms
will consist of about 70% West Elm products and will cost "half the price
of our competitors" to furnish.
"We're taking a
domestic retail brand and making it commercial," Bowd said. "For us,
it's about the residential feel."