There will soon be a new place to stay in Nashville, and what a place it will be. The W Hotel, set to open in the spring of 2021, will include 14 stories, with 346 rooms, along with a live music venue, two restaurants by James Beard-winning chef, Andrew Carmellini, a Barista Parlor coffeeshop, a 2,000-square-foot pool, and a 10,000-square-foot deck overlooking the Gulch, along with a rooftop bar.
“We just saw this huge gap in a city that was so vibrant and so full of culture,” Dave Tessier, developer of the new hotel with Hospitality Gaming Advisors and Twelfth Avenue Realty Holdings told The Tennessean. “You couldn’t have a better community to put a lifestyle hotel into.”
The new W Hotel, which is part of the Marriott Hotels family, is at 12th Avenue South and Pine Street. It’s part of an ongoing effort by the hotel chain to launch a new chapter for Marriott, targeting younger guests with their own specific desires for travel.
“You’ve got great entertainment, the people are amazing and it’s authentic,” Dave said of choosing Music City for the W Hotel. “We like the brand for this city because we think it’s approachable luxury.”
The advantage of the W Hotel over some other hotels, is how they cater to the entire experience.
“It’s an entertainment venue that has hotel rooms,” Dave said. “A great lifestyle hotel is really a place that you want to be at during the day, not just to sleep at night.”
“When I went to hospitality school 25 years ago, it’s almost like there was a wall created around the hotel for the few that could in there,” added W Hotel General Manager David Cronin said. “Now, it’s not just about staying in a hotel for a night. Come just have a coffee.”
W Hotel will also have plenty to attract local residents as well, which is why he believes W Hotel will become a thriving part of Music City.
“It screams, ‘Community, come in!'” David said. “Success for us is defined as where (someone) who lives in a condo across the street says, ‘No, I like to go over there for breakfast.'”
Although W Hotel may not have as many hotel rooms as some other hotels, Dave believes their other amenities will make it stand out above the rest.
“If you’re a sophisticated traveler, you want to go where the locals want to go,” he said. “We programmed the hotel to give a broad array of experiences. You had to build venues that invited locals because a 346-room hotel can’t survive on just guest rooms.”