The Inside Story Behind Marriott’s Moxy-Led Invasion of Manhattan
Photo Credit: The developer behind the Moxy Times Square in New York City plans to open seven other Moxy hotels throughout the U.S. over the next few years. Moxy Times Square
Skift Take
If you really want a better understanding of today's hospitality industry, you've got to hear it from the owners first because, without them, all those brands would be nothing more than ideas.
When Mitchell Hochberg, the president of New York-based real estate company Lightstone, was trying to find the next best "affordable" hotel concept to bring to the U.S., he found himself at a bit of a dead end.
He and his team were searching everywhere for a hotel that would be both economically viable for their future hotel guests, and for them as the money behind the development.
Lightstone had considered going with other millennial-minded micro-hotel brands such as AccorHotels' Mama Shelter, CitizenM Hotels, and Yotel, but none of those brands seemed to be the right fit. Hochberg thought that the company's best bet was to do something entirely independent.
But when Hochberg found himself at the Malpensa Airport in Milan in 2013 and saw an "under construction" sign for a Marriott brand he'd never heard of before, he knew he'd found his answer.
At the time, there were no Moxy hotels in the U.S. This new brand from Marriott was marketing itself as offering the "bare maximum
