Boston – Page 2 – Building The Godfrey

Social Media Honors

We are excited to have successfully opened our second hotel under The Godfrey’s brand and thrilled with the warm reception we’ve received in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood.

Yesterday, we received more exciting news that our hotel is a finalist in the prestigious 8th Annual Shorty Awards, honoring our social media work. Our recognition in the hospitality category of the awards is a great honor and we’re excited to share our entry with you here. We highlighted details about this very blog and the reason we like giving our partners and guests a behind-the-scenes look at our hotel. We also shared our social media efforts we conducted leading up to and during our Boston opening.

As background, the Shorty Awards honor the best social media campaigns across many industries. You can see more about the awards on their website.

Thank you to all who have followed along in our journey from brand creation to opening our doors in both Chicago and Boston. And of course, thank you to the Shorty Awards for recognizing us.

Downtown Crossing: Past | Present | Future

We’ve discussed before how proud we are to be a part of such a historic, vibrant neighborhood. Downtown Crossing has experienced many different personalities over the years, and we’re honored to be a part of the current revitalization that is bringing commerce and residents back to this neighborhood.

The team at Boston Virtual Imaging created a great 5-minute video highlighting and discussing the change that is currently underway in Downtown Crossing, which features one of our own team members.

“You’ve got something interesting going on all of the time,” said Paul Sauceda, The Godfrey Hotel Boston Director of Sales and Marketing. “There are offices in the day, but there is theater and restaurants and nightlife at night.”

Thank you to Boston Visual Imaging for including us in this video and thank you to our neighbors for welcoming us to Downtown Crossing.

We’re so excited to grow with you.

Opening Celebrations: The Evening Reception

Following our Wednesday morning ribbon cutting ceremony, we hosted an evening receptions for our neighbors, friends and guests.

Our friends at Yvonne’s catered our food and beverage, our partner at George Howell Coffee shared up a sampling of coffee-based beverages and DJ Liz Ladoux made sure the music was flowing all night long.

It was the perfect ending to a momentous and exciting day, and we couldn’t be more honored to be a part of such a vibrant neighborhood. Thank you to everyone for your continued support.

You can view more of the day’s photos on our Facebook page here.

Image Credit: 617Images.

Opening Celebrations: The Ribbon Cutting

It’s with great pleasure and a true honor that we can officially announce our opening. This morning, we hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate opening our doors and becoming a permanent part of the Downtown Crossing neighborhood.

After sharing a welcoming note, our General Manager Larry Casillo presented our neighbors The Wang YMCA of Chinatown, Boston Asian: Youth Essential Services, Kwong Kow Chinese School and Asian American Civic Association with charitable donations of $25,000 each to mark the start of a long and hospitable relationship.

Following the donation presentation, John Rutledge, President & CEO of Oxford Hotels & Resorts, spoke on our partnership and what opening The Godfrey Boston means to us.

Rosemarie Sansone, President and CEO of the Boston Improvement District (BID) shared what our hotel opening means to the vibrant neighborhood of Downtown Crossing. Pat Moscaritolo, President & CEO of Greater Boston CVB, touched on how the restoration of the Amory and Blake buildings breathes new life into the neighborhood.

We were then honored to have Mayor Martin J. Walsh speak on the transformation of Downtown Crossing over the past few decades and how The Godfrey Hotel is part of the movement to restore our neighborhood and usher us into the new year.

Our ribbon cutting ceremony was an absolutely wonderful way to ignite our relationship with the city and to mark the opening of our doors to Downtown Crossing, the rest of Boston and our current and future guests. We’re thrilled to be officially open and want to thank everyone who has supported us each step of the way.

We look forward to having you stay with us.

Discover Your Element: Our February 3rd Opening

Today we announced our debut of the architecturally restored Amory and Blake buildings as the 242-room, luxury lifestyle hotel in Boston’s historic Downtown Crossing neighborhood, set to open to the public Wednesday, February 3. An adaptive reuse project spearheaded by Oxford Capital Group, LLC, we are ushering in experiential excitement to out-of-town travelers and the Downtown Crossing community alike.

Immersed in the eclectic Theatre District, walking distance from Boston Common and the heart of Downtown Boston, we offer a sleekly-designed lobby with lounge and bar, Cicchetti at Godfrey, unparalleled in-room amenities with technological and luxury offerings, flexible meeting space, a spacious fitness center, and more. Coming later this spring and summer, a street-level coffee shop by George Howell Coffee and an upcoming restaurant helmed by local restauranteurs will open their doors to our hotel and neighborhood guests.

A pivotal opening in Downtown Crossing, we are committed to continuing the revitalization of the neighborhood. We are the second Godfrey Hotel property developed by Oxford Capital Group, LLC; the award-winning flagship property opened in February 2014 in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. “We are proud to call Boston home to our expanding Godfrey Hotel brand,” says Oxford Capital Group President & CEO John Rutledge. “With such a robust room demand in Boston, The Godfrey Hotel Boston is an instrumental development in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood, and city beyond.”

Future guests may take advantage of specials for the opening online at www.godfreyhotelboston.com/special-offers-en.html.

Discover: An Architectural Marvel

Under the direction of Finegold Alexander Architects, the exterior prewar brick-and-stone façade of our two adjacent historic buildings, the Amory and Blake, and the white terra cotta façade of the Blake building itself have been completely restored to pay tribute to the century-old office buildings in which we are located. Originally designed in the Neoclassical and Gothic Revival styles, the Amory and Blake buildings embody the spirit of Boston in their structure and design, while enabling us to breathe new life into the buildings from the inside out.

Our exterior combines the restored masonry of the six-story Amory Building with the white terra cotta 11-story Blake building to bring about the balance of old and new in our making. our interior, designed in collaboration with The Gettys Group, provides a sleek contrast to the restored, ornate exterior façade of both the Amory and Blake buildings. Our interior design strives to celebrate the past while embracing the new to offer a calming oasis amidst a vibrant, urban scene. The modern interior of our building blends the vintage exterior with the restoration of original elements, including the original first floor lobby, elevator banks, and stairwells with intricately cast banisters.

Discover: The Lobby

Our guests are welcomed by an energized, intricately detailed historic lobby juxtaposed by a dramatic 16-foot ceilinged architectural portal that connects to our serene guestrooms. Situated within our lobby, Cicchetti at Godfrey, open to hotel guests and locals alike, offers classic Italian cocktails and Italian small plates- reminiscent of the fare offered at cicchetti bars across northern Italy, particularly Venice. “The Gettys Group’s intent with the redesign of the hotel was to honor the existing fabric of the architecture, and infuse it with new life by juxtaposing the modern interiors with the historic façade,” said Ben Nicholas, Senior Design Director at The Gettys Group.

Discover: The Guest Rooms

Deliberately designed to offer each of our guests a distinctly customized experience, our 242 guest rooms offer a tranquil urban escape, complete with a neutral color scheme, tailored carpeting, luxury bedding, and upholstered seating designed to evoke a sense of refined comfort for each guest. As the first hotel in the Boston area and the larger U.S. to offer Stockholm-based InnSpire technology, we have outfitted each room with InnSpire’s award-winning “Guest Media Streaming” technology. This allows every guest to use personal mobile devices to stream photos, videos, and music of their choice directly to the 55” HDTV in their room. Simultaneously, guests will be able to access our hotel amenities such as room service, concierge information, in-room spa services, and complimentary Wi-Fi throughout the hotel.

Coming Soon …

Spring 2016: George Howell Coffee

We are a proud partner of pioneering coffee roaster George Howell Coffee in establishing a new café. This café is accessible to guests through our adjoining hotel lobby, as well as a ground-floor entrance on the corner of Washington St. and Temple Pl.

Reminiscent of George Howell’s own Coffee Connection, which first opened in Cambridge, MA in 1974, our café will focus on coffees from single farms, where the pinnacle of coffee quality is found, and feature a wide range of sophisticated, yet inviting coffee experiences. Guests will be able to enjoy beverages created using a state-of-the-art espresso bar, hand-poured single estate and micro lot coffee servings, coffee tasting “flights,” group education coffee classes, and much more.

Striving to provide customers with a superlative cup of coffee from its café and in the home, our George Howell Coffee location will provide an experience unrivaled by any other café in Greater Boston. Our café will immerse guests into the world of quality coffee in all of its diverse facets—ranging from an expansive offering of brewed coffee drinks bound to delight aficionados, to a dedicated consumer-friendly interactive retail space offering a wide selection of single estate coffees, equipment, and complementary products.

George Howell Coffee at The Godfrey Hotel Boston will open in spring 2016.

Summer 2016: Street-Level Restaurant

Poised to welcome guests soon after George Howell Coffee’s spring opening, we will debut a 4,600 square-foot restaurant and bar created in collaboration with soon-to-be-announced local restaurateurs.

To learn more, please visit www.godfreyhotelboston.com.