Starwood Hotels announces opening date for Inner Harbor Aloft hotel

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) has announced its Aloft Syracuse Inner Harbor will open June 1.

Starwood’s second hotel in the Inner Harbor, the upcoming Element Syracuse, will debut in May 2018, the company said in a news release issued Tuesday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the second hotel during the July 2014 groundbreaking for the Aloft hotel at the Inner Harbor.

Stamford, Connecticut–based Starwood announced the opening dates in its release outlining its plans to grow its portfolio in New York from 12 to 22 hotels by the end of 2018 across its Aloft, Element, and Four Points brands.

Fayetteville–based COR Development Company is currently building the Aloft hotel as part of the overall development project in the Inner Harbor.

It will also handle construction of Starwood’s Element hotel as well.

The construction of the Starwood Aloft hotel continues as the City of Syracuse sues COR Development after COR had secured a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal with the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency (OCIDA).

COR had sought the tax deal for its ongoing Inner Harbor development project.

The city contends COR “deliberately” sought a tax-relief deal from OCIDA to allow the company to avoid a community-benefits agreement with the city that would have required COR to provide project-related jobs to Syracuse residents, according to a Dec. 30 statement from the office of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com