Camden To Have New Hotel?

Did you know: There are zero hotels in Camden. None. Really! (Where do opponents of the Cmaden RIversharks stay?) Ever since the Plaza Hotel closed in 1985, Camden has been hotel-less.

The New York Times reports a group of developers is looking to build a 140-room Hilton Garden Inn — there’s one in Philadelphia on top of the Filbert Street parking garage near Chinatown — on Camden’s waterfront.

What better place for people following around Pearl Jam or whoever this summer to stay when the band plays the concert venue on the waterfront, now called the Susquehanna Bank Center for some reason. That, and people who don’t want to pay to stay in Philadelphia.

But will one hotel save Camden?

“A hotel can start to leverage quite a bit,” said William H. Hudnut III, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute, an education and research group in Washington, D.C. “It brings people, and it brings rooftops — restaurants, bars and eateries. One hotel won’t do the trick, but it’s certainly a positive piece in the jigsaw.”

Okay, so: No. But, hey, it’s a start. Maybe that family that fled Camden on Extreme Makeover is now selling their Pennsauken house to move back in to the city! No, wait, probably not.

In a Faded City, Plans to Build a Hotel Build Hope [New York Times]
Home built for ‘Extreme Makeover’ for sale [AP via Iracane]
[Photo via Jessica Kourkounis/New York Times]