Despite pandemic, new hotel opens in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A brand new hotel opened in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square on Thursday.

It's a bold, yet inspiring move to open a new spot at a time when tourism is down, but Hyatt Centric says it wants to be part of the rebirth.

The Hyatt Centric has more than 330 guest rooms, meeting rooms, gathering spaces and a brand new restaurant.

"It's a challenging time to open a hotel," says Brian Lang, the director of sales and marketing for Hyatt Centric. "It's a challenging time to do business in every capacity, but I think the hospitality industry has arguably been hit the hardest."

Now that they're officially open, they say people are making last-minute reservations for this upcoming weekend.

Some are from out of town, others are locals playing tourist in their own city, but the bright spot is that they're also bringing new jobs to a battered industry.

"We want to be part of the recovery of the hospitality industry that's been hit so hard in our city," Lang says. "We also want to employ people who have unfortunately lost their jobs because of the COVID environment. We're very happy to be able to employ 30 associates right now. That number will exponentially grow as we can increase occupancy and people become comfortable traveling again."

All around the hotel you can see nods to Philadelphia and all COVID-19 safety protocols are in place.

They are still waiting to open the restaurant and the event spaces, but they plan to when restrictions lift.