What used to be Philadelphia’s Four Seasons hotel is set to reopen as a branch of Hilton’s high-end Curio brand, the hotel’s operator said Tuesday.
The property, which will be renamed the Logan, will be completely renovated before opening this fall, Denver-based Sage Hospitality Group said in a statement.
The Logan Square hotel, owned by Host Hotels & Resorts, will have its traditional decor updated to a more modern look, according to Sage, which did not provide a budget for the renovations.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lackawanna County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
MOOSIC, PA — Mayor James Segilia has five words for three motels in the borough.
“Clean up or close down.”
Ever since a standoff at the Rodeway Inn, 4130 Birney Ave., in January tied up local police departments for five hours, Segilia and police chief Charles Maurer have sought ways to close down the Rodeway, Moosic Motor Inn, 4124 Birney Ave., and Trotters Motel, 4217 Birney Ave.
The three motels are a nuisance that attract a dangerous clientele and tie up police resources on countless calls, the mayor said.
“It costs time, aggravation and it takes away from police patrols,” Segilia said.
Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/moosic-mayor-clean-up-or-close-down-1.1703585
Location of Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
UPPER MERION TOWNSHIP, PA — If area residents who were without power may have felt like the losers in Wednesday’s icy winter weather games, the winners were the area’s hotels, where “no vacancy” seemed to be a recurring theme.
Then again, depending on where they chose to spend Wednesday night, some of those displaced “losers” may have felt as if their luck was about to change for the better.
“Where else would you want to be but at a casino on a night like tonight, right?” said Michael Bowman, CEO and president of Valley Forge Casino Resort.
With every one of the resort’s 485 rooms due to be snapped up within the hour, Bowman said the lobby was buzzing with folks who had closed up their dark and unheated homes in search of plush lodgings on First Avenue in King of Prussia.
Locator map of the Greater Pittsburgh metro area in the western part of the of . Red denotes the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, and yellow denotes the New Castle Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To endear a hotel to the oil and gas crowd, give them a place to eat and sleep at all hours of the day, a place to wash their boots, a warm place to smoke in the winter and a cold beer once in a while.
So goes the formula developed by Tejas Gosai, president of the Washington, Pa.-based business Shale Hotel Inc. The company is managing two hotels geared toward oil and gas workers, building two others and preparing to turn the Monroeville Holiday Inn into an industry destination for workers summoned here by the Marcellus Shale, the natural gas deposit underlying much of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Gosai represents a group of four doctors, among them his father, who bought the 187-room Monroeville hotel in June. His goal is to replicate there what he has helped to do in Bentleyville — attract at least half of the guests from oil and gas fields.
The Gosais have been in the hotel business for a dozen years. Kam Gosai, a practicing physician in Washington County, co-owns the Holiday Inn Express and the Best Western Garden Inn in Bentleyville.
If you’ve stayed at the Heritage Hills Resort in York County while touring Amish country, toasted newlyweds at the Avalon Hotel in Erie or settled in for a weekend of pampering at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in the Laurel Highlands, chances are the person who made your bed, poured your Champagne or washed your towels wasn’t being paid minimum wage.
In fact, Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation — behind Texas, Alabama and Florida — for the number of hotels breaking labor laws, according to an analysis by PublicSource, a nonprofit news organization.
York, Erie and Pittsburgh had the highest number of violations by their hotels, with Farmington, Lancaster and the Harrisburg area coming in behind them.
These working men and women, who might have few skills to find another job, are often reluctant to talk about their situations, as PublicSource discovered after making many attempts to reach them.
“These workers are subject to retaliation from employers, and some hotels have nondisclosure agreements,” said Mackenzie Smith, an organizer and executive board member of Unite Here Local 57, which represents hotel workers in Pittsburgh.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
All hotels and motels in Berks County must begin collecting a 5 percent room tax starting Oct. 1.
The county commissioners in a 2-1 vote Thursday extended the tax to facilities beyond the 15-mile radius of the Sovereign Center established when the tax went into effect March 1, 1997.
The tax currently produces about $1.7 million annually, with 80 percent going to the Berks County Convention Center Authority to repay money borrowed to build the center and 20 percent going to the Greater Reading Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The expansion is expected to bring in an additional $310,000 in 2014.
Retailer Albert R. Boscov, whose nonprofit Our City Reading is trying to get financing for a four-star Doubletree Hotel along Penn Street, asked City Council on Monday to approve a $1 million federal loan as part of the package.
“If you can help us here, I promise you a hotel,” Boscov told council members.
Council is slated to vote on the deal Monday.
Harrisburg area hotels are filled this weekend. Many guests are checking in from NY, NJ and DE. They are fleeing Hurricane Irene.
Area hotels are diverting business to Carlisle as they have reached capacity. One local hotel manager contacted 20 other Harrisburg area hotels looking for anyone with a vacancy, but they were all full.
If you are looking to head inland to escape Irene, you will have to look somewhere else! Harrisburg is booked!
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