Move over Steve Christie, there will be a new banner flying on the former AM&A’s Department Store if developer Rocco Termini and The Hamister Group have their way. The development team has announced that the 117 room hotel in the AM&A’s complex is expected to carry the Hilton Garden Inn flag. Downtown has been Hilton-less since Adam’s Mark purchased and renamed the Buffalo Hilton in 1998. The recently-opened Embassy Suites in the Avant and the Hampton Inn are members of the Hilton family of hotels.
Hilton Garden Inn is an award-winning, mid-priced brand with 450 hotels in the United States, Canada and Latin America.
In the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, Hilton Garden Inn achieved the highest ranking in the “Mid-Scale Hotel Chains with Full Service” category for the seventh time (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009) in eight years. The study is based on responses from more than 65,000 business and leisure hotel guests who evaluated 65 different hotel brands in the United States and Canada between May 2008 and June 2009. The brand was 57 points higher than the segment average and led in five out of the seven guest satisfaction index measures that were evaluated.
The Hamister Hospitality Group, Inc. will manage the new hotel and move its front office staff into the building from Williamsville. The company currently manages ten select-service hotels in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The firm was ranked as one of the top 100 hotel management companies in the United States by Hotel & Motel Management magazine, and earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the country.