The first dual-brand hotel in the area is coming to CityGate in Rochester by the end of the year, bringing a complementary pair of Marriott hotels under the same roof.
The 189-room hotel will feature two hotels — an AC Hotel by Marriott and Element by Westin — with shared entrances and check-ins, back-of-house operations, fitness facilities and administrative functions. Outside of the common area, the hotels are distinct. The AC Hotel serves more traditional hotel guests and the Element offers extended stays.
There will be 115 AC Hotel rooms and 74 Element rooms in the dual-brand hotel, which was designed by Meyers + Associates.
“The biggest benefit of dual brands, of course, for the customer is the variety of guest room types. But for the operator,
what’s beneficial is a lot of the shared functionality,” said Chris Meyers, principal architect and owner of Meyers + Associates.
The dual brand lends itself to flexibility for guests. If someone is reserving a block of rooms for a wedding, for instance, there’s a wider array of rooms and suites for those looking to stay for different periods of time.
“Now you essentially have two hotels that you can offer. You have different room types, you have different room sizes. It just gives you that higher level of flexibility in what you offer,” Meyers, a Fairport High graduate, said.
The hotel is a long time coming at the CityGate complex anchored by Costco and REI. The original vision called for a more residential focus on property located at Westfall and East Henrietta roads abutting the Erie Canal. Recent additions include an Albunn Coffee House and Chick-fil-A.
The original plans called for two hotels, Meyers said, and combining them together provided a solution in the confines of the development, despite a high-traffic tenant like Costco.
“What we’re finding in a lot of these bigger mixed-use developments is this notion of shared parking is really beneficial,” Meyers said. “The overall development plan tends to take a lot of that into consideration to make sure that we’re not sort of over-paving the landscape.”
Work on the hotel is slated to finish in time for the holiday season, with a late 2026 expected completion date.
The challenge of building a dual-brand hotel in an existing complex suits Meyers just fine, who was the Marriott Architect of the Year in 2018. So does tackling the first such hotel in the Rochester market.
“The materiality of the exterior of these buildings have a reference back to each of those brands. But we as architects get to bring a level of creativity to tie everything together — not just to the brand of the hotel but to the context of the right application of this area,” Meyers said.
The historic brick industrial buildings in CityGate provided that motivation in the exterior design of the hotel. And while Meyers is based out of Columbus, Ohio, he appreciates what it means for his roots in Rochester.
“It’s exciting for me to be working on a great project like this in Rochester. A lot of family and friends will get to see it and experience it, which makes it mean a lot to me,” he said. "We’re always excited to see the community advancing and building and developing and doing new things.”
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester's first dual-brand hotel planned for CityGate
