General manager Lowell Beebe-Center, on the Club Level's terrace

“It’s less than three weeks since we opened, and we’ll come close to selling out tonight,” says Sheraton Tribeca general manager Lowell Beebe-Center, who has been with Sheraton for over 12 years, most recently at a property on Long Island. He says he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to open a new-build hotel in “the number-one hospitality market in the world,” even though he lives in Connecticut.

Before we even started the tour, Beebe-Center wanted to make a point: “I’m being very sincere when I say that we want to be part of the community. Please let everyone know that if we can be of any assistance, they can email info@sheratontribecanewyork.com, and it comes to me directly.” Noted!

Game tables in the lobby

We started in the lobby, which has a mod vibe to it. Sheraton has been changing up its lobbies, and this one is a good example: The front desk is two “pods,” so clerks aren’t barricaded behind a big desk, and there are game tables along one wall (“a park-like feature,” says Beebe-Center). Most notably, the business center is a cluster of Link@Sheraton workstations smack in the middle of the lobby, with a café counter behind it; a bar runs along the lobby’s western wall. The goal is clearly to make the lobby a place guests actually use. Off the lobby is the Cast Iron Grill, which serves three meals a day and 24-hour room service.

The building has 369 rooms spread out over 21 floors (the elevators list 22 because as in many buildings, there’s no “13th” floor). The top two floors are Club Level, where the 25 rooms aren’t larger but you do get some extra amenities (larger TVS, free Internet, etc.) and access to the Club Level lounge, which serves breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres. The Club Level also has one of the best terraces south of Canal: Around 1,400 square feet, with 180-degree northern views.

One small slice of the view from the Club Level terrace

Rates start at $389, and the rooms average 290 square feet—not huge, but not tiny, either, and many have amazing views. Only 55 have double beds. There are 24 suites, including four on the second floor, facing Lispenard, that have large terraces and great views of the folks waiting for the P.C. Richard & Son Theater.

As for other amenities, the hotel has a fitness room and two meeting rooms—one for 16 people, one for 10. On the east side of lobby, passersby might have noticed windows are papered over. More about that at a later date….

Sheraton Tribeca is at 370 Canal, between W. Broadway and Church; 212-966-3400, sheratontribeca.com.

Rooms are decorated with old photos of downtown New York

Another look at a room

Many rooms feature fantastic views

Only the top hallways get windows at the north end

The four second-floor rooms facing Lispenard have terraces

The lobby bar

The lobby café

Link@Sheraton, the hotel's business-center workstations

The Club Level terrace

Beebe-Center says that if people like the idea of the T in the façade standing for Tribeca, then it was absolutely intentional

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