June 16, 2009 By Chris Ostrowski
NYC Hilton Garden Inn Taking Advantage of Cutting Edge Technology
Considering new hotel development projects are being canceled left and right or failing to even
make it to the drawing board as a result of the recession, it seems logical to assume that this is
not exactly the most opportune time for the premier of new hotels touting cutting-edge
technology. Somehow, though, amidst the carnage that is the project pipeline, technologically
innovative hotels are still being introduced now even in the most unlikely of places, such as the
form of the decidedly atypical and advanced Hilton Garden Inn in New York.
All the while, though, those administering the cutting-edge technology deployments recognize
the fine line they walk now between being able to pursue such projects amidst a recession and
being forced to scale back as a result of financial constraints.
“Certainly, there are fewer projects I'm hearing about moving forward now because of the
market. A lot of projects on the drawing boards are unable to obtain construction lending and I
don't anticipate those will get funded until the credit markets correct themselves,” observed
Joshua Aaron, President of technology consultant and deployment firm Business Technology Partners. His firm helped formulate what may now be considered the most high-tech selectservice
hotel in the country in the form of that Hilton Garden Inn on West 35th Street in New
York that opened in February.
“So some of the companies we talk to that had been talking about, say, a phone system upgrade,
have gone quiet during this period. However, as for the major projects previously funded before
the recession, I can tell you I haven't seen any budget cutting. They're just moving forward.
We were nervous that would happen, but it hasn't happened.”
In New York, while such a full-service approach via technology is not intrinsic to hotels such
as Hilton Garden Inns, the one Business Technology Partners found itself working on
nevertheless has become a high-tech select-service hotel—an oxymoron in a world where the
latest innovations trickle down the industry segments, beginning in the luxury realm.
Developed by BCRE Services and later sold after its opening earlier this year to RLJ
Development, the Hilton Garden Inn's claim to technology fame is its sophisticated local-area
network and wide-area network infrastructure, according to Aaron, which has allowed for an
integrated wired and wireless network throughout the property. Aaron added that the hotel also
has a “pretty nice telephony solution from Mitel that's a hybrid system so it can be TDM or
VOIP.” But Aaron also explained that the 298-room, 30-story Hilton Garden Inn does not have
a fully-converged infrastructure, “but it does have a pretty sophisticated layer three switching
and routing network in the hotel and a real nice data center on the cellar level.” Aaron also
mentioned that because the hotel was built from the ground up, creating a proper data center
and running the right amount of cabling was made easier. The hotel has CAT5E cabling.
BTP coordinated all of the activities of the hotel's technology vendors and the installation
contractors to ensure all of the systems were correctly deployed. BTP also directed the
deployment rack and stack of network hardware and designed the hybrid VOIP-enabled system.
For the networking infrastructure, BTP integrated the high-speed Internet access, voice and data
networks and wireless connectivity that supports both the hotel's guest services and back office
operations.
“Also, the board-room area has an audio/visual system with control systems and video
projection screens, so the hotel has a pretty nice complement of A/V,” Aaron added. The
presence of such high-tech aspects, of course, begs the question of why the developer would
want to invest in such technology for a select-service hotel?
“They were future-proofing it,” Aaron explained, “and they wanted to increase the property's
value over the long-term while also offering guests a higher-end experience.” And no manner
of recession can apparently stand in the way of that.
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