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How many Bunk Beds can we Put in these Room Sizes?

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dreamhostel started this discussion 16 years 11 months ago

Dear Friends,
I want to put as many Bunk Beds as possible in the following rooms, would you please help to me assist me to make budget.please try to give me a roughly Numbers please :

Room 1 10x14 Fit =
Room 2. 8.5x11 Fit =
Room 3. 12.5x13 Fit =
Room 4. 13x15 Fit =
Room 5. 7x15 Fit =
Room 6. 6x8 Fit =
Room 7. 7x15 Fit =
Room 8. 13x15 Fit =
Room 9. 12.5x13 Fit =
Room 10. 10x14 Fit =
Room 11. 8.6x11 Fit =

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dreamhostel

16 years

Dear AboriginalHostel,
Thank you so much, I agree 100 % with you. I can say that you are really good Exprienced Person, so atleast you come up with an aprox. idea and that is more than perfect one. But Santa completely denied that if I am able to put any beds in these rooms(except 13x15). It may be less Numbers but cannot be Zero beds? He almost make my plan as Zero while New York City, Department officialy issued C.O. for 9 Bed Rooms for for families ( means one Private Bed) in each room ) He told me that I am only able to put the beds only in One Room(13x15) so that makes me very nervous discouraged to comments like that kind of reply. My mean is not to insult anyone, we gether here on this site to help each other, advice each other honestly like you did. Not to dicourage someone right? Do you agree that we can put atlease 35beds not just only, just only 2, Bunk Beds in entire building ? Who is right, you are right?, Santa is right? I am right? AborigianlHostel is more than right. because did given the no. hoestly.while Santa's comments was just to discourage to anyone who is willing to open hostel and every one on this site.

Dear AboriginalHostel , I really appriciate your breakdown of beds.I wanted to put less than 35 beds. Some one in new york city visited my my location and he counted and told me you can put easily 50 Bunk Beds.In New York City the Room Sizes are really too small I agree that is not like Europe but still people like it. . I want to tell you that except these Rooms, I have an antire floor 22x61=1342SQ Fit Free Space to provide a Social areas with sofas, TV, Free Wii to Play, Storage Room for Guest, Small Reception Room,Telephone Booth, BreakFast Room, Loundry Room for Guests, 2 Kitchens, Space for BBQ(Back Yard)

Thanks for giving me your honestly numbers I really appriciate it very much.

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santa klaus

16 years

Don´t worry, no offense taken.

However, I don´t post here to confirm anyone´s opinions, but to tell what I think.

So, here is what I think.

I assume you can fill any sort of hostel in New York right now, no matter how crammed it is.

Still, you have to consider one thing: if you invest a lot of money right now, you probably want to make sure your hostel is still competetive in five or ten years, when there could be dozens of hostels in town, like in Berlin for example. I lived there until 1997 - there was only one independent hostel, and it was that sort of crammed place. It does not exist any more, because it would have no chance in a market with more than 50 hostels, most of them pretty large and with all mod cons.

If I was to start a hostel anywhere, I´d make sure it is better than all the others in town, because standards are constantly going upwards, and you don´t want to be uncompetetive from the start.

As my brain only processes figures in the metric system, I did not calculate the size of all your rooms, only the two smallest and biggest ones. Your biggest room has 18 square meters - that´s exactly the size of our double rooms. 15 sqm for the room itself and 3 sqm for the attached bathroom. With a bit squeezing, that could also be a quad with two bunks in it.

That´s as much as I can say without seing the floor plan. Maybe you can remove some walls and turn two tiny rooms into - a small one. I am sorry if that discourages you. I think that house would not be a good hostel. How big is it altogether? My rule-of-thumb is 10 sqm = 1 bed capacity.

Is your plan to run that hostel yourself? In that case you would have to live in that house, too. Which means less capacity. Or do you want to rely entirely on hired staff? You will have to pay for 24/7 staff. I figure that´s not cheap in New York - so you will have to get a house with enough space for 50-80 beds.

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dreamhostel

16 years

Dear Santa,

In NYC the average room size are small compare to Erope and that is Standard not only my Rooms are small it is Standard sizes in New York.

I my country even bathroom are bigger than rooms. if you go to Hongkong you would find the rooms even smaller than NYC.

I saw many hostels in NYC and they have similar rooms and still able to put many Bunk Beds. Like Aborigianlhostel calculated the beds that was right calculation. Even two of the Hostel owner came to my Location saw the entire building and one the guy suggested me around 40beds easily and while the other guy told me is 50 beds, I was thinking for just to put 35beds. I have an entire floor 22x61=1342 SQ fit Area for Social Area. I owned the building and I am not going to live there, I am going to hire a manager and I have an exprienced person. I know how to manage, save the management cost.

Your comment that "I am able to put bunk beds in only One room and forget this building" was really discouraging. You may never seen the New York Hostels.

Anyway, it's ok. Aboriginalhostel incouraged me back as my origianl plan.

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santa klaus

16 years

Have you thought about turning the building into a boarding house or a B&B?

It sounds much more suitable for that sort of thing. 3 floors = 6 apartments. One of them for the person who runs the place. You can easily charge $200 per night for a well-equipped apartment.

Having only 5 couples instead of 35 backpackers requires much less work - the potential revenues would be almost the same. One person would easily be enough to run the place.

I believe New York hostels have small room sizes. When I travel, I am willing to sacrifice space, but I have to breathe! Your average guest wouldn´t come from Hon Kong, where 10 persons live in one-bedroom apartments - they would be from Europe. We are simply not used to such small rooms.

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dreamhostel

16 years

Dear Santa,
That is good idea too. I know a person in Manhattan who charge 350-450night for a small studeo apartment for one night and he required minimum 3nights to book.his apart has no rooms, only one small room with small kitchen and small bath and still it is full all the time. for me 250 would be fine. his location is exellent too. Mine is not too bad either. What is B&B?( I asume Bread and Breakfast?) I am still finding the facts. But I want to know more advice from you guys who runs the hostels? NYc has really crazy demands of beds. Let me know if you have any good advice.

Thanks.

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rockyluvr

16 years

B&B is 'Bed & Breakfast'. I'm surprised you're not familiar with the term since this is quite popular in the US, even more so than hostel in many areas. B&B in america caters totally different type of guests though.

I think it depends on the market. In your area if the need for hostel beds is high then you just go ahead and open your hostel business. Or you can just do some research around the city if B&B business is profitable as well, maybe you can do it with much less operating costs. You posted in the other thread regarding to the zoning code. All I know is in my area (DC) the building you can run a hostel/inn type of business needs to be commercial only (with higher density). But you can open a B&B in a residential building. You just rent each room for 1-2 people and provide some real breakfast. In NY there are really nice B&B places and if you're interested in how they run the place, you can try to stay there for one night. I love staying in both hostel and B&B while I was in Europe. In america so many B&B places are way too expensive.

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rockyluvr

16 years

BTW, I'm a new member. I'm opening a hostel myself and this webboard has given me a lot of useful advice. I've been thinking a lot about the room size and the right number of beds I should put in a room. also what's the decent number of bathrooms. Certainly the real estate price in the US major cities is very high for such small building. Most commercial buildings we looked to buy costed at least 1 mil USD and still comfortablly fit just 30-40 beds and you need to try to put at least 50 beds in it and you still don't know whether it would be profitable. It's been almost a year for us doing research and planning and surveying each neighborhood. Since we don't have experiences everything seems to move slower but in the end I believe we can finally build our dream hostel :)

My question is whether I should try to partition my building into small rooms (150-170 ft2 4-6 beds), each with a small private bathroom or just make the rooms bigger (4-8 beds) and share a communal bathroom instead. I don't know how small is 'too small'. I'm thinking that in the US most people here love privacy that's why making smaller size hotel rooms can help market to that type of customers as well. And I also can maintain the affordability. I'm wondering if it's worth it. I got this idea after coming back from my cruise travelling and 3 of us stayed in the cabin with 2 bunkbeds. It's a tiny room (170ft2) but you can have everything a hotel provides. Please advice me if this idea is good or not. I realize the construction cost will be much higher but I'm interested in building it for the long term. I'm just not sure if other hostellers would think the same.

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santa klaus

16 years

Our experience is that most people prefer rooms with less beds. Our doubles and quads are really popular. These rooms should also have private facilities.

8-bed (or bigger) rooms with own shower ar not so good, because everybody wants to shower in the morning which will result in a congestion. It is good to have a few large dorms though because there are always people who just want the cheapest place to crash.

So: a mix is probably the best idea, with 1/4 of your capacity in doubles, 1/2 in triples and quads (ensuite) and 1/4 in large dorms (shared bathrooms).

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aboriginalhostel

16 years

BTW, I'm a new member. I'm opening a hostel myself and this webboard has given me a lot of useful advice. I've been thinking a lot about the room size and the right number of beds I should put in a room. also what's the decent number of bathrooms. Certainly the real estate price in the US major cities is very high for such small building. Most commercial buildings we looked to buy costed at least 1 mil USD and still comfortablly fit just 30-40 beds and you need to try to put at least 50 beds in it and you still don't know whether it would be profitable. It's been almost a year for us doing research and planning and surveying each neighborhood. Since we don't have experiences everything seems to move slower but in the end I believe we can finally build our dream hostel :)

Are you planning to open in DC? How many hostels are there?
I only found 1 HI and couple of guest houses and inns...
You need to make it profitable but easy to handle as well. The size

About opening a hostel and fill it up with guests: IMHO, I think hostels and cities are living in a symbiotic relationship: If there are no availabilities, guest won't go there (or rather stay in other lodging facilities) but it doesn't mean that there is no need for a new hostel. You just have to do it better than your competition. ;)

My question is whether I should try to partition my building into small rooms (150-170 ft2 4-6 beds), each with a small private bathroom or just make the rooms bigger (4-8 beds) and share a communal bathroom instead. I don't know how small is 'too small'. I'm thinking that in the US most people here love privacy that's why making smaller size hotel rooms can help market to that type of customers as well. And I also can maintain the affordability. I'm wondering if it's worth it. I got this idea after coming back from my cruise travelling and 3 of us stayed in the cabin with 2 bunkbeds. It's a tiny room (170ft2) but you can have everything a hotel provides. Please advice me if this idea is good or not. I realize the construction cost will be much higher but I'm interested in building it for the long term. I'm just not sure if other hostellers would think the same.

Both way could work, but if you are planning to make an upmarket, high class, downtown located hostel, which is a bit more pricey and you offer more services, then you shouldn't fail on the room size and bathrooms. Most people like smaller rooms anyway (except the tiny-tiny ones) if it's not cramped with beds all over the place. Keep in mind, it's not only the beds make the room size but the facilities and the ergonomic setup. Personally, I'd keep some rooms bigger, so you can have your bottom price even lower with the same value of the room, then the core rooms would be 6 beds ensuite, and make some 4 bedded ensuites with the chance to turn them into private double/twins if needed...

As you have the luxury to purposely build one, you can plan it much better than struggling with an existing building...

I'd suggest for you and the key people to make a holiday trip to Europe, have a look of some hostels around... so it could give you some brainstorming ideas!!! ;)

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aboriginalhostel

16 years

Our experience is that most people prefer rooms with less beds. Our doubles and quads are really popular. These rooms should also have private facilities.

8-bed (or bigger) rooms with own shower ar not so good, because everybody wants to shower in the morning which will result in a congestion. It is good to have a few large dorms though because there are always people who just want the cheapest place to crash.

So: a mix is probably the best idea, with 1/4 of your capacity in doubles, 1/2 in triples and quads (ensuite) and 1/4 in large dorms (shared bathrooms).

I guess Klaus was faster! :D

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