A 276-room dual-brand Marriott hotel that will consist of an AC Hotel and a Residence Inn, located at 1431 Jefferson St. in downtown Oakland, concept. A brand-new hotel could arrive in downtown Oakland as soon as this summer and offer two Marriott brands under one roof along with hundreds of new rooms.
OAKLAND — A brand-new hotel could arrive in downtown Oakland as soon as this summer and offer two Marriott brands under one roof along with hundreds of new rooms.
The Marriott brands that will emerge at the new lodging complex are an AC Hotel and Residence Inn, according to an executive with Hawkins Way Capital, the principal owner and developer of the 18-story hotel in downtown Oakland.
In 2019, a Hawkins Capital affiliate, Jefferson Street Hotel, paid $30 million for the sites needed to accommodate the hotel development, which is in an opportunity zone that provides developers with certain tax advantages.
“This hotel is one of the single largest opportunity zone projects in the country,” Wolff said.
All told, the hotel will bring 276 new rooms to Oakland’s hip and trendy Uptown District. With two brands, the hotel will be able to cater to differing hospitality markets.
“A Residence Inn typically allows for longer stays and for guests who prefer to stay in their room to eat,” said Lewis Wolff, a well-known developer, real estate investor and entrepreneur who is advising Hawkins Way Capital. “An AC Hotel is kind of a trendy concept for shorter stays.”
The dual-brand market approaches enable the hotel to cater to a wider variety of guests.
“This gives you a chance to hit two markets instead of just one,” Wolff said. “There are two lobbies but you can easily walk from one to the other.”
The new hotel is expected to be open well before the end of this year.
“We hope to open this summer,” Wolff said.
The hotel is headed for an opening date in a world that continues to be plagued by wide-ranging economic uncertainties and restraints on the hospitality and travel markets, including in the Bay Area.
“We don’t know what the Oakland hotel market is going to be like coming out of COVID,” Wolff said.
Still, plenty of optimism has emerged regarding the downtown Oakland commercial property market.
“It seems as if downtown Oakland is getting one announcement after another about new office and residential buildings and new property acquisitions,” Wolff said.
The new hotel is topped off and will soon become a reality, according to Wolff.
“We are real, we are up in the air, this isn’t just a rendering,” Wolff said. “There’s just a lot of interior work that has to be done right now. The work has to do with furniture, fixtures and finishings.”
When the hotel opens, Wolff believes downtown Oakland’s current upswing will buoy the prospects for the new lodging tower.
“Oakland is the next Brooklyn,” Wolff said. “Brooklyn right now is booming, and a lot of business from Manhattan is pushing into Brooklyn. Oakland is getting a lot of business from San Francisco, which is becoming a place that is intolerable.”
