Boutique-style hotels embrace the suburbs

HOBOKEN, N.J. -- Visiting the suburbs no longer has to mean staying in a cookie-cutter hotel.

Suburbs around the USA's biggest cities are starting to get their first wave of boutique hotels, as more travelers seek hotels with personality closer to outlying areas that have transformed into business and social hubs.

"People are looking for something different. They want something design-driven, that looks like where they live," says John Russell, CEO of Nylo, a new independent chain of stylish hotels that is basing its strategy on building hotels in suburbs (Plano, Texas; Warwick, R.I.) instead of big cities, at least initially.

The latest wave of boutique-style hotels tends to offer modern furnishings, the latest high-tech offerings such as flat-screen TVs and MP3 plugs, a thoughtful collection of art and trendy gathering spots such as the "living rooms" pioneered by the W chain.

One of the most-watched examples is the 225-room W under construction in Hoboken, N.J., just across from Manhattan on the Hudson River.

The project was conceived in 2001 when brothers Michael and David Barry of Applied Development proposed a W hotel and condominium tower on the docks where On the Waterfront was filmed decades earlier. Hoboken was then in the early stage of transition, with old factories getting converted into million-dollar lofts, and new retail, restaurant and office buildings showing up amid neighborhood pizzerias and Irish pubs.

The Barry brothers wanted to make a statement about Hoboken's transformation, so they went after a hotel brand that would be unexpected for the town.

Today, the sleek, metal-and-glass-skinned, 26-story W tower is a bustling construction site. When doors open in December, the hotel will feature spectacular panoramas of the Manhattan skyline, an indoor/outdoor terrace bar with fireplaces and the W chain's only ballroom for 500 to capture local weddings and corporate parties.