The grandly Brutalist and angular Hyatt Regency at the foot of Market Street has 15 new guest rooms thanks to some underutilized, oversized hallways that had some excellent Bay views.
The general manager of the hotel, Matt Humphreys, noted a couple of years ago that each of the guest room floors of the hotel had these extra-large hallways at the eastern end of the building. And as the Chronicle reports this week, he spearheaded a project to turn those unnecessary spaces into revenue-generating — but tiny — guest rooms with great views overlooking the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building.
Just how precious is square footage in San Francisco these days? The Hyatt Regency converted hallway space into 15 rooms ... but at least they have great views. @RolandLiSF on the trend of tiny hotel rooms: https://t.co/x20JvaK3cZ
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) December 26, 2019
The rooms are just 185 square feet, which is 120 square feet smaller than the average room at the 1973 hotel designed by John Portman. But they follow a trend, as the Chronicle notes, of urban hotels offering ever shrinking spaces for tourists to stay.
The hotel is famous for its open and arguably wasted square footage. Wikipedia notes that the Hyatt Regency — which is also technically Five Embarcadero Center — hold the Guinness World Record for the largest hotel lobby. The grand atrium lobby is 107 meters long and 49 meters wide, with a height of 15 stories. The lobby was, in fact, used for some shots as a stand-in for the lobby in 1974's The Towering Inferno — with the 138-story "Glass Tower" in the film being fictional and shot using miniature models.
These new mini rooms at the Hyatt, because of the prime views, go for $269 per night — which as the Chronicle notes is right in the middle of the range at the hotel, where rooms are priced between $179 and $350.
