YONKERS, NY-Developers behind a new Hyatt Place hotel here broke ground on Wednesday on the $20-million project being built at the Cross County Shopping Center here.

LodgeWorks Partners, L.P. affiliate Yonkers LW Hotel Associates, LP is developing the 155-room hotel along with Friend Development Group. The hotel is being built at the site of a 60,000-square-foot office building and former Cross County Hospital that will be redeveloped and converted into the hotel.

The Hyatt Place hotel, which will also include 990 square feet of meeting space, is scheduled to open in 2015. LodgeWorks, which is developing the Archer hotel in Manhattan and a Hampton Inn in Brooklyn, will manage the new Hyatt Place Yonkers. The hotel will total approximately 71,000 square feet.

"Yonkers is excited to welcome Hyatt Place to our city and to the Cross County Shopping Center, offering first-class hotel accommodations to our growing business clientele," said Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. "We thank the Yonkers IDA (Industrial Development Agency) for investing in this project for the betterment our community, bringing hundreds of jobs to Yonkers and providing additional economic opportunities for our residents and visitors."

"I am delighted to welcome Hyatt Place Yonkers to the Cross County Shopping Center," said James Stifel, executive vice president for the property's owner, Brooks Shopping Centers, LLC. "Adding new and dynamic amenities at the shopping center has been, and will continue to be a focus for us. I want to offer my congratulations and thanks to everyone who collaborated with us in order to bring this development to fruition."

Brooks Shopping Centers and mall manager Macerich completed a $250-million upgrade to the Cross County Shopping Center in 2011 that repositioned the storied shopping center and added more than 200,000 square feet of retail space, including the 75,000-square-foot expansion of anchor Macy's.