The fourth floor of the Cambria Hotel is festooned with Frisbees, the fifth floor lavish with lollipops and the sixth floor features typewriter motifs ‒ all celebrating products invented in New Haven. Not to mention the abstract map of the city made of found objects in the lobby, where you can also buy bottles of New Haven-made Gorilla Lemonade.
It’s all part of the “sense of space and sense of place” that makes the Cambria brand unique among Choice Hotels offerings, said Janis Cannon, Choice senior vice president of upscale brands, at the grand opening of New Haven’s Cambria on Thursday.
The six-story, 130-room hotel had a soft opening earlier this year at 20 Dwight St., overlooking North Frontage Road. That location, blocks from Yale New Haven Hospital and not far from Yale campus, was another theme of Thursday’s opening, which featured an appearance by the university’s canine mascot, Handsome Dan.
The New Haven Cambria will also donate 3% of total revenues to Yale-affiliated charitable programs, illustrated with the handover of an oversized $5,000 check to Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Executive Director Cynthia Sparer at the grand opening.
“We want to look like the communities where we’re located and we want to be part of the fabric,” Cannon said.
Choice Hotels, based in Maryland, has been making a big move into higher-end lodging, Cannon said. The company has opened 64 Cambria hotels across the country, with rates starting around $180 a night in New Haven.
Even with supply chain disruptions and a challenging financing environment, Choice has another 11 hotels “going vertical” in the coming months, according to Cannon. “It says the financial community are big believers in Cambria,” she said.
Within Connecticut, a Cambria opened earlier this year at the Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk in South Windsor.
“We are so thrilled to be here in New Haven,” Cannon said, adding that the city was ideal for the brand’s localized and creative theme. “This hotel is really built all around that sense of space and sense of place about innovation in New Haven,” she said.
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
