Ft. Greene High-Rise Hotel Developers Offer Visas For Investments

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN -- As construction ramps up later this year, developers of a new Marriott hotel near the Brooklyn Academy of Music are looking for $36 million from foreign investments for the project, the Commerical Observer reported.

VOS Hospitality and Second Development Services, who are building the 29-story hotel at 95 Rockwell Place, are looking to use a U.S. program that offers immigration visas to foreigners who support qualifying business ventures or investments in the United States, the Observer said. The program would give a legal residence visa to those who invest $1 million in a commercial enterprise that will create at least 10 American jobs.

Developers told the Observer that they would be canvassing "worldwide" for these types of investments for the upcoming 200-room hotel, which they said will fill a need in the area. The Autograph-branded Marriott will also include meeting spaces, a restaurant and a fitness center with a rock-climbing wall.

“This project presents a unique opportunity to bring an upscale hotel property in close proximity to New York cultural and entertainment institutions,” Steven Anapoell, a managing partner at George Washington, said in a statement to the Observer.

Plans for the hotel first surfaced in 2013 shortly after the current building, a five-story structure, was put up for sale for $9.25 million, the New York Post reported at the time.

Back then, local leaders said that hotel development was needed in the area due to the cultural projects and the nearby Barclays Center.

“As a result, hotel development is jumping across Flatbush Avenue, creating another employment opportunity for the area," said Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.

Thomas Leeser, who has overseen projects like the London 2012 Olympic Park and Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, is the architect for the hotel.

To read the full Commercial Observer story, click here.