Things Are Looking up - and Going Up

Joshua L. Muss, whose company is constructing a $320 million, 32-story complex in downtown Brooklyn called Renaissance Plaza.

Finally after several years of spotty performance, replete with optimistic predictions and disappointed hopes, builders, brokers and industry advisers agree that the commercial real estate market in the new York area seems on a path of steady, if slow, improvement.

In Brooklyn, after 13 years of wrangling, Muss development Company is at work on a $320 million 32-story complex called Renaissance Plaza that will include offices and a 384-room Marriot hotel.

The Hotel Industry

"Occupancy rates have been at or above record levels all year,: said John A. Fox, a senior vice president of PKF Consulting. "Through July, the occupancy rate was 77.9 perecent, compared to 73.8 percent in 1995. We are projecting record rates through the rest of the year and an increase next year."...

Brooklyn will get its first large hotel since the 1930's as part of the renaissance Plaza project that is considered a key to renewing the borough's downtown area. the 385-room marriot Hotel will occupy the first seven floors of the 32-story, 810,000-square-foot building on Adamas street, which will also have an underground parking garage. the project is scheduled to open in the summer of 1998.

Joshua L. Muss, the developer, said the hotel is key to the redevelopment of Brooklyn's downtown area. "There is not a business district anywhere in the world that does not have a hotel," he said.

He said the underground parking was critical for attracting out-of-towners, who tend to arrive in cars. "The reason the old hotels in Brooklyn went down the drain was that there was no place to park a car," he said.