DATE: Friday, March 7, 1997                 TAG: 9703070645

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: YORKTOWN                          LENGTH:   47 lines

MARRIOTT EXTENDED-STAY HOTEL OPENS IN YORKTOWN

Marriott International Inc. has opened in Yorktown the first in a chain of moderately priced extended stay hotels.

The new hotel division - TownePlace Suites - was created to capitalize on the demand for extended-stay lodging under $65 a night, said Tim Sheldon, vice president of TownePlace Suites. Average room rates range from $55 to $65 a night.

Marriott already has the more pricey Residence Inns and Marriott Executive Residences.

``We found continually there were thousands of extended stay travelers we never took in because we were too expensive or our Residence Inns were just filled up,'' Sheldon said.

Extended stay hotels are a growing part of the lodging industry. In the last six months, several new chains were introduced to Hampton Roads.

Extended Stay and Suburban Lodge, both 132-room hotels, opened in the Greenbrier area of Chesapeake in recent months. Each company is planning two more hotels in the region, both choosing Virginia Beach and Newport News as their next sites.

Candlewood Hotel will open a 95-room extended stay lodge in Hampton in August.

Marriott chose a location off Victory Boulevard just over the Newport News city line for its inaugural hotel, Sheldon said, because of the lack of extended stay hotels in the area and for the residential qualities of the site, which include a neighboring pond and golf course.

The 95-room complex is the first of about 30 TownePlace Suites to be built over the next two years. By 2000, Marriott expects to have 130 of the hotels.

Marriott initially committed $25 million to begin TownePlace Suites, which will develop through a combination of franchised development and company-owned and managed properties.

``We have 25 deals signed to date, and expect to approve 40-50 more sites this year,'' Sheldon said.

All the hotels will feature studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom suites with fully equipped kitchens, an exercise room, an outdoor pool, guest laundry, voice mail, two-line telephones and on-site faxing and copying.

The 95-room prototype features two facing buildings separated by a residential ``main street.'' Resembling a town house community, each building has three stories and interior corridors.

Designed to be built on a minimum of 1.7 acres, the total development cost per unit - excluding land - is estimated at $45,000.

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