144-Key Marriott Residence Inn Coming to Pittsburgh’s Oakland Neighborhood

by Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

A new extended-stay Marriott Residence Inn hotel may soon rise in the city’s Oakland neighborhood.

According to the Pittsburgh Business Times, the MWK Forbes II development team led by Gary Wilson, a principal with commercial real estate firm Hanna Langholz Wilson Ellis, is planning to build the 144-room property on Forbes Avenue. The site is located next to the massive Skyvue apartment complex currently under construction. The MWK partnership originally owned the land where it planned to build a hotel, but eventually sold it to Valdosta, Georgia-based Ambling University Development Group.

The upcoming $20 million Marriott Residence Inn is expected to welcome its first guests by the end of 2016. Other partners in the project include designer Tasso Katselas Architects and David Cocco, president of North Star Lodging and Development Inc., who joins MWK after a 30-year career in hotel management.

Massaro Corp., led by David Massaro, who is also a shareholder with MWK, will be the development’s general contractor. The construction company is also building the neighboring 389-unit Skyvue project, which upon completion will feature a mix of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom homes. Totaling more than 500,000 square feet of space, the new 13-story complex rising at the former site of the Allegheny County Health Department will rank as one of the largest apartment developments by the number of units in this part of Pittsburgh.

The city’s Oakland neighborhood is home to another Marriott Residence Inn-branded property – the Residence Inn Pittsburgh University/Medical Center. Located within a mile of the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and the UPMC Hospitals, the hotel offers 174 spacious suites with separate sleeping and living areas, fully equipped kitchens, a fitness center, complimentary breakfast buffet, and other amenities.

Photo credits: www.marriott.com