IHG Hotels & Resorts has introduced new prototype variations for its three all-suites brands: Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites and Atwell Suites. The company’s new expanded design options offer increased flexibility for developers across several site configurations and market types, while maintaining guest experience.
The new prototype focuses on space optimization and the potential for new efficiencies, while retaining the primary features from the brands’ existing design elements. Rather than replacing, these options supplement existing choices for the three brands and help owners and developers identify the best fit for their market and site, including new build, conversion, dual-brand or adaptive reuse assets.
The new prototype options will be available by the second quarter of this year, with the initial properties to feature them anticipated to open in 2025.
Though exact dimensions and key counts will vary for every hotel and brand, retention of the brands’ hallmarks will be prioritized — spacious storage and kitchen area and common F&B spaces.
Here are some of the highlights of the new prototype:
- Staybridge Suites: IHG has launched the Smart Studio room configuration, which enables developers to add a smaller room bay by reducing its existing 16’ size to 13’. Catering to shorter-stay guests, this new room category can account for as much as 25% of the total room mix. The guest suites optimize space by streamlining kitchen equipment, fixtures and millwork cabinetry, while maintaining dedicates spaces for sleep, work and relaxation.
- Candlewood Suites: Building on the performance of the brand’s recent design launched in 2019, the Beacon 4.2 variation further optimizes land usage and creates new efficiencies by increasing building density. The new prototype features slimmer room bays (from 15’3” to 12’6”) with fully equipped kitchens and signature recliners. The prototype includes flexible room categories and dedicated social, semi-private and communal lobby working zones, with the potential to add up to 12 rooms on a similarly sized site.
- Atwell Suites: The prototype offers two lobby configurations — a new one-story, centrally loaded model as well as the existing two-story end loaded design, while maintaining a flexible lounge, work and dining and bar zones. An extra slimmer room bay option (12’6” down from16’8”) will include a wet bar, sofa and work desk, with the potential to add up to 12 rooms on a similarly sized site.
As of now, the designs will be available only in the U.S. but will soon be available for properties in Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America.
IHG has over 700 open properties globally, nearly all of them in the Americas for the three suites brands. In December 2023, Staybridge Suites marked its 25th anniversary. With openings in Salt Lake City and Houston in 2023, Candlewood Suites grew its footprint to over 520 open or pipeline hotels in the Americas since it opened its first hotel in 1996. Atwell Suites, IHG’s latest all-suites brand, recently opened its third U.S. property in Austin earlier this month, following openings in Denver and Miami.