Starwood To Operate New Alabama Hotel

HUNTSVILLE, AL-O&S Holdings LLC, the developer of a new 200-room luxury hotel and conference center here, has selected Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide of White Plains, NY to operate the property upon its opening next year. The hotel will anchor O&S Holdings’ $200-million BridgeStreet development, an upscale lifestyle center complete with shopping, dining, entertainment, office, apartments and residences. The entire development is slated for a fall 2005 opening.Bridgestreet is being developed at Cummings Research Park, which has been touted as the second largest research park in the US and the fourth largest in the world. The square footage of each component to be developed was not immediately available, but 40 of the project’s for-sale residences will be located on the top five floors of the hotel property, which will rise 12 stories. An O&S Holdings executive did not return a phone call seeking further comment.O&S Holdings was formed in 1992 by Gary Safady and his cousin, Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s. O&S Holdings and affiliates own or have developed 80 properties in the US. Including Bridgestreet, the company has two major projects under development. The other is Louisiana Boardwalk, an 850,000 sf waterfront entertainment and outlet shopping center anchored by Bass Pro Outdoor World and a 14-screen Regal Theater. The project is scheduled to open in the spring. The company recently completed Foothills Crossings, a 315,000-sf power center located 30 miles east of Los Angeles that contains a new prototype 180,000-sf Sears Grand.Starwood will operate the Bridgestreet hotel as a Westin, a Starwood subsidiary with 122 hotels and resorts in 30 countries and territories. Westin SVP Sue Brush says the hotel will be the brand’s first in Alabama. “The city is an important regional business center and home to several Fortune 500 technology companies situated in eleven industrial and research parks in the area,” says Brush.