The Baton Rouge Health District will get Louisiana’s first Element Hotel likely sometime next year, with a local hotel group planning to begin work on the project this summer.
The brand was launched by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide in 2006 as an eco-friendly, extended-stay concept, and has grown to 87 hotels in the U.S. and elsewhere. Developer Ash Patel says the five-story project will cost $17 million. He declined to disclose rates but says they will be competitive with nearby hotels.
Patel is developing the project along Summa Avenue in the burgeoning health district with partner Neil Patel. Initially slated to begin work in December, he says the slow pace of work on infrastructure projects in the health district—including Midway Boulevard and Dijon Drive—has delayed the project.
Work on the hotel is now scheduled to begin in June or July and take 15 months to complete. In the meantime, Patel is finalizing plans for the hotel and working with the Baton Rouge Health District and Baton Rouge Area Foundation on planning the development to fit in with the surrounding greenscape. Part of the reason he liked the Element brand was its environmentally-conscious focus, which fits in well with the area.
The extended-stay concept will go well with the nearby hospitals, Patel adds. Marriott International bought Starwood, which operates Element Hotels, in 2016 to create the world’s largest hotel chain, and the brand now uses Marriott reward programs.
“There aren’t any Starwood brands out here,” Patel says. “We like that it has all the Marriott functions now.”
Patel’s group bought the land for the hotel last year from developers Brian Dantin and Ross Bruce for an undisclosed amount. Dantin and Bruce also have plans for a $25 million mixed-use development adjacent to the Our Lady of The Lake Children’s Hospital, which is under construction. That project will feature office and retail space along with apartments.
Dantin says he’s working on securing financing and hopes to break ground in January of 2019, with a finish date sometime in 2020 or 2021. The city-parish is also planning to buy back some land from the developers for infrastructure projects.
After that is completed, Dantin Bruce has plans for another mixed-use project nearby in front of the Element Hotel.
—Sam Karlin
