Allegria Hotel holds job fair at city hall

      
The Allergic Hotel, the luxury hotel being built at the former King David Manor site on the boardwalk at National Boulevard, held a two-day job fair to recruit for 100 start-up positions, from dishwashers to concierge to accountants.     
Just after 9 a.m., there were already some 70 job-seekers seated in the benches filling out applications, waiting to be interviewed or standing on line, some dressed in business suits and pearl necklaces while others wore wool hats and blue jeans.    
“They hit me a little sooner than I was ready for this morning,” said Mark Lahood, president of Access Hotels and Resorts, who was hired to perform the entire pre-opening process for the Allegria. Lahood expected some 2,000 applicants over the two-day job fair, held on Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. both days.      
Among Tuesdays early birds was John Gyulay of Valley Stream, who was laid off a week ago from a health care company in Manhattan, which he said was downsizing due to the faltering economy. “A lot of people are not working, so whatever job they can get they’ll take,” said Gyulay, who seeks a maintenance or security job at the hotel.      
Following Gyulay on line was Andre Morris of Long Beach, who hopes to get a full- or part-time custodial job. “Right now I’m doing construction, but it’s seasonal and there’s not always work,” he said. Morris had heard about the job fair through word of mouth around the city.        
The Allegria focused its promotion of the job fair in Long Beach, mainly by pasting flyers and posters around town, as well as advertising in local papers, including the Herald. “We’re really trying to embrace the Long Beach community,” Lahood said about the business strategy.       
Long Beach resident Margaret Famigoietti said she learned about the job fair from her children. She lost her job of 12 years at a Brooklyn nursing home in October 2008, due to economy-driven layoffs. “We all have bills to pay,” said Famigoietti, who is collecting unemployment. “It’s getting tough. My savings is going way down.”       A certified nursing assistant who worked with families at the nursing home, Famigioetti said she enjoys working with people and wants to land a job at the hotel’s front desk or in reservations. “They told me they’d call me for an interview,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s a great sign or not.”    
The hotel is focusing on finding service-oriented, personable people, Lahood said. “In a hotel environment, we hire a lot based on personality,” he said. “It’s the one thing we can’t train for.”     
Lahood pointed out that people can expect the hotel to add as many as 60 more positions once the hotel is in full seasonal swing this summer. “Just because someone doesn’t make it this first round doesn’t mean there aren’t future opportunities,” he added.       The hotel expects to have its staff hired by early April, and to open its doors sometime later that month or in May, Lahood estimated.     
Danielle Bivens, a Long Beach resident who works in the cafeteria at East Elementary School, said she’ll take any part-time position. “I need something for the evenings and when school is over, something for the summer,” Bivens said.   
Gabrielle Rios of Valley Stream, who while waiting to be interviewed on Tuesday, said she spent the last two years working full time to earn her associates degree in hospitality from New York City College of Technology. Now she’s eager to work at the hotel, whether in the kitchen or at the front desk. “Whatever position is available now I’ll take it,” Rios said.      
The hotel developer, Allen Rosenberg, president of the Manhattan-based Alrose Group, showed up at the job fair on Tuesday. Rosenberg bought the King David Manor property for $21 million in August 2007. He was unsuccessful in his bid to buy the Garden City Hotel last year, but a Wild By Nature supermarket and Walgreens did open on his property on Long Beach Road in Oceanside.      
The Allegria is touted as a high-end, luxury hotel that will feature 143 rooms (112 guest rooms and 31 luxurious suites), as well as a rooftop pool and spa (run by the Long Beach salon Joseph Christopher) and meeting rooms for corporate and catered events. The Allegria will be the first luxury hotel in Long Beach since the mid-20th century.      “Creating a forum that provides job opportunity,” Rosenberg said, “will help foster optimism in a gloomy economy and will give gifted individuals a chance to grow with a hotel that is the first of its kind in the neighborhood.”      
Asked why the Allegria was holding its job fair at city hall, Lahood said that, in addition to the hotel being in a construction zone still, they thought there was no better place to hold it in Long Beach. “We are going to be a long-term fixture in this community,” Lahood said, “so we need to start off in a way that’s going to meld the two together.”         
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.