May 28–The site of the first hotel in downtown Boca Raton was humming Thursday with the sounds of construction equipment, as work began on the 200-room property.

The 13-story Hyatt Place Boca Raton is being built at 120 E. Palmetto Park Road, with its opening slated for summer 2016.

“This is going to bring us to the next level of what we’ve been trying to do in our city to develop it to bring our residents from out in the suburbs into the city, to bring people down here from West Palm Beach,” said Bob Weinroth, Boca’s deputy mayor. “This is a great day for Boca.”

The hotel will include an 8,000-square-foot restaurant operated by an unidentified national chain, 4,000 square feet of meeting space and a retail component.

Boca’s business community welcomes the new hotel, developed by the Kolter Group of West Palm Beach and built by general contractor Kast Construction.

“As we transform our downtown, it’s important to bring as many businesses down here,” said Troy McLellan, president and CEO of the Boca Chamber, which serves south Palm Beach County. “This [hotel] will allow us to do that.”

Hyatt Place officials are happy to have landed a spot in Boca.

“It’s not an easy task to get into a dynamic market like this,” said Julienne Smith, senior vice president of real estate development for Hyatt Place and Hyatt House. “We have tried for years, and we’re grateful to a group like Kolter who can make it happen.”

The Hyatt Place brand was launched in 2006 by Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp., and hotels are designed to appeal to the 24/7 multitasking traveler. Hotels offer large guestrooms with sofa sleepers, free Wi-Fi and a free hotel breakfast.

Hyatt Place Boca is one of several hotels on tap for Palm Beach County in coming years.

The county added 635 hotel rooms between June 2014 and February 2015, and 708 more rooms are under construction for completion between October and March 2017, according to data compiled by the tourism marketing organization.

Some 1,290 more hotel rooms are in varying stages of planning.

The Kolter Group also has a 300-room property under development in Palm Beach Gardens that’s expected to break ground in about six months, a company official said.

Through Kolter Hospitality — it’s hotel management and operations division — it also operates Hyatt Place West Palm Beach, Hyatt Place Delray Beach and Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale 17th St. Convention Center.

“For those 6 million visitors we welcome every year, we have one more spot for them to come to and that’s in Boca,” said Glenn Jergensen, executive director of the Tourist Development Council of Palm Beach County.

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