Arlo Hotels is Shaping a New Hotel Style for Urban Explorers

Arlo SoHo, located at 231 Hudson Street overlooking Canal Street in Lower Manhattan at the juncture of Soho and Tribeca, is succeeding with a novel concept of hotel service designed for younger generation business travelers and “urban explorers.”

Arlo Hotels calls Arlo SoHo a luxury micro hotel or a lifestyle boutique hotel. Nearly every detail of its interior design speaks of an innovative approach that gives the environment a stimulating, refreshing feeling. Nothing is quite what you are used to, and the difference is striking.

Breaking convention in a myriad of small ways, the hotel’s design challenges preconceptions and induces a creative frame of mind that brings the electricity of Manhattan’s streets into the calm haven of the guest rooms.

Balancing public and private space
The accommodations concept is based around the principle of small guest rooms and abundant public space. The rooms are designed as efficient living spaces for people who are likely to want to spend most of their time either in the hotel’s many public spaces or out exploring Manhattan.

Arlo SoHo is designed for the kind of traveler who will be using the guest rooms primarily as the last refuge of a day full of exploring and socializing in Manhattan. Travelers who are visitors to New York can feel immediately at home and immersed in New York life by milling in the various public spaces of the hotel with like-minded customers who are also drawn to the hotel’s unconventional style.

One of the hotel’s twin terrace rooms.

The public spaces are large, numerous and varying in style, including Arlo Roof Top, with views overlooking Lower Manhattan with the Hudson River to the west, which shines brilliantly during Manhattan’s sunsets.

The front door of the hotel opens into an intimate reception area adjacent to the busy Arlo Liquor Bar, which noisily invites guests to jump right into the New York social life.

Guests are also free to relax quietly in the inner courtyard within the hotel’s horseshoe architecture.

Features like complimentary WiFi, bedside USB charging stations and Bluetooth radio make the accommodations appealing to today’s leading-edge travelers.

An urban refuge
Arlo SoHo’s 325 guest rooms are small and compact. There are five room types with choices of a queen bed, a Jefferson king bed, two twin beds, or twin bunk beds — all around 150 square feet in area; and the grandest offering, the City View Terrace rooms, with 280-350 square feet of floor space, terraces overlooking Lower Manhattan, and outdoor showers.

The downtown location is off the track of the main tourist pathways, which provides a nice break from the maximum intensity of Midtown and the major hotel district surrounding Times Square. The Arlo SoHo is one mile north of the World Trade Center, and a little more than two miles north of Battery Park and the ferries for Liberty Island and Ellis Island.

The hotel makes creative use of partnerships to provide specialized, expert services within the hotel and to bring the personality of New York City inside. Local vendors’ brands are available at Bodega, the hotel’s 24-hour pantry.

The hotel restaurant is operated by Harold’s. Also on property are a 24-hour food market operated by Mouth NYC and a gift shop operated by Exit9.

The outdoor shower at the Arlo.

Nearby shopping venues include Opening Ceremony, American Two Shot, Housing Works and Evolution. The boutiques, shops and galleries that make Soho a world-famous art district are a few, walkable blocks from the hotel.

Beyond SoHo
The company also has a property at 11 E. 31st Street in the NoMad section of Manhattan, the area between Lexington Avenue on the east side, Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) on the west side, and between 25^th and 30^th streets north and south. The name “NoMad” is a contraction for “north of Madison Park,” which is located between 23^rd and 26^th streets and Madison and Fifth avenues.

In 2019, the company plans to open a third Manhattan property in the Hudson Yards area, another newly developing neighborhood between 10th and 12th avenues from West 30th to West 34th Street. And, the brand is already planning to open another Manhattan property and is scouting locations in Miami and Los Angeles for more Arlo properties.

Travel Market Report spoke to Javier Egipciaco, managing director of Arlo Hotels, about what sets Arlo’s hotel product apart.

How do you define your concept of service?
Arlo Hotels are defined by purposeful design, valuing quality over quantity, and creating spaces that feel naturally efficient, yet with a flexibility to shift and adapt. When designing the guestrooms, we carefully determined which guest needs are required, and which could be better met in the public areas of the hotel. The team focused on what was most important to the target guest: an organized, efficient home base from which to explore the surrounding city.

We also put a larger focus on local experiences and programming that guests can enjoy outside the confines of their rooms. Arlo strives to inspire exploration and connect guests to the neighborhood, which ultimately leaves them with unique, memorable experiences.

Who are your customers and who are you targeting?
We’re not so much defined by age, income or traditional demographics, but rather a mindset. Our guests are curious, do their research, are well-informed, and are ready to try new experiences. We’ve seen a huge number of professionals in creative and entrepreneurial industries coming to stay with us.

Can you tell us about the company behind Arlo?
Arlo is owned by Quadrum Global. Arlo is the first hotel brand and management company that they’ve started from the ground up, and joined their portfolio of hospitality companies in 2016. With Quadrum as the ownership group, the Arlo team has been able to confidently launch into the NYC market, and is mainly helmed by myself as the managing director. Arlo SoHo opened in September 2016, and Arlo NoMad opened in November 2016.

What is the company’s growth strategy?
We’re interested in growing the brand in key feeder markets, and within these markets, we are looking for under-the-radar neighborhoods with undiscovered business partners, vendors and stories. We, of course, look for destinations that show promising tourism growth, but within those, we’re excited to find neighborhoods where we can work collaboratively with the surrounding public to develop a cohesive community narrative.

 We’re looking forward to growing the brand. However, we’re entirely unwilling to compromise the brand. We’ve received a lot of interest in the brand and Arlo as a management company, but we’ve had to respectfully decline several opportunities that just don’t align with our ethos. The team is focused on being patient and finding the right opportunities, rather than a speedy growth.