Photo courtesy of the city of New Haven
A New Haven hotel owner is asking for city permission to convert its extended-stay property into a multifamily rental.
The New Haven Village Suites is located just off Howard Avenue in the city’s City Point neighborhood, just over a mile from Yale New Haven Medical Center and the city’s downtown.
Built in 1986, the hotel at 3 Long Wharf Drive was last sold to an LLC controlled by a Florida-based investor in July 2021 for $1.76 million, public records show.
The conversion would see relatively minimal changes the 112-key hotel. As built, the property is made up of 14 individual buildings housing eight hotel suites each. Each suite has a kitchen, a bathroom and one to two bedrooms.
Six of the resulting 112 apartments will be rented on an income-restricted basis in line with the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance and nine covered, secured bicycle storage spots will be added as part of the conversion.
Because the hotel was built under a Planned Development District, the project will need approval by the City Plan Commission, which will take the matter up on Aug. 17.
The application doesn’t explain the owner’s motivation behind the conversion, but similar projects have popped up across the state over the last two years as the COVID-battered local hotel industry looks to make up for revenues lost during the pandemic’s early years, take advantage of an increasingly favorable market for multifamily assets and adjust to what could be permanently lower travel demand.
