It’ll be a little less rock and roll on Main Street.
The developers looking to turn the former Howard Johnson hotel downtown into a high-end combination boutique hotel and entertainment venue have gained new approvals from the Niagara Falls Planning Board for a redesigned site plan.
Dramatic changes to the hotel’s facade were unveiled for board members at a Wednesday night meeting. The new hotel exterior no longer features an airplane on the roof, fountains in the front and guitars and musical notes attached to the outside walls.
The revised design has an understated tower wall of shimmering circular elements and modest signage, something the developer said was requested by Marriott Corporation. The project is seeking an affiliation with Marriott’s Tribute Portfolio, a collection of independent, boutique-style hotels that the hotelier says feature “(an) indie spirit, striking design, and deep connections with their local communities.”
A representative of the developers said Marriott felt that they had gone “a little too hard into the music” in the project’s original design. The Hotel Live!, at 472 Main St., had originally been described as “similar to a Hard Rock hotel,” but on a smaller scale.
Planning board members unanimously approved the new project site plan and SEQR application.
Anthony Pandolfe, a civil engineer working with the hotel’s design team, previously told planning board members that most of the existing Howard Johnson hotel space will remain intact as a result of the redevelopment. A former two-story swimming pool area will be demolished and replaced with a 4,700-square-foot, five-story tower that will largely house a restaurant, bar, rooftop patio and live event space.
The hotel will have 78 rooms, down slightly from the 81 rooms in the former Howard Johnson space.
Approval of the Marriott affiliation is expected to take about six months. The developers said they still expect to begin construction later this year.
In December, the project received an extension of Cataract Grant funding from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency (NCIDA). The $450,000 grant from the Cataract Tourism Fund was first approved in August 2024.
The funding extension will run through the end of 2027.
The $16 million Hotel Live! project was first proposed in June 2024. The developers had promised a hotel experience with each floor themed to a different music genre.
But the project experienced delays when the developers reportedly had difficulty closing on their financing. The Cataract funds they received are a reimbursable grant that can be used only for work on the restaurant and event venue portions of the project.
The project funding is broken down into $2.25 million in tax incentives, $11.65 million in bank funding, $2.4 million in developer equity and $1.5 million in grants from Empire State Development.
It is projected to create 52 new jobs, 32 full-time and 20 part-time.
The developer, Canadian-American Live! Inc., which also operates the helium balloon ride next to the hotel property, says it will be “the first of its kind in the world.”