Schrager also announced in the same press release that he was selling his interest in the Gramercy Park Hotel, which has been a great success – but not without unrest between him and partner Aby Rosen.

With Schrager Hotels, Schrager is looking to create two distinct hotel brands – as I mentioned in this post a little under two months ago. He’s looking to launch then in “24 hour cities” around the world, and has already placed bids on a number of properties in New York City, is currently proceeding with renovations on his purchase of Chicago’s Ambassador hotel and recently took a tour of the Chelsea Hotel in NYC, but deemed it not right for what he’s looking at. And by the way – I’ve never seen so much press coverage about a hotel developer taking a walking tour of a hotel in my life, are we that desperate for news lately?!

Schrager Hotels currently is still using the IanSchragerCompany.com domain name/website – typing in SchragerHotels.com just redirects to his primary website, which in itself has not been updated in years – it’s entry on edition hotels is still listed with the original press release, and doesn’t even refer to the brand by name yet (if you remember – the partnership was announced, but it was a few months before the name was chosen). Details about the 2 new brands are still difficult to come by. Today’s press release only stated that the new company will have

..one luxury lifestyle brand and one that will be reasonably priced. Both new brands will be rolled out in 24 international gateway cities around the world with the first opening in Chicago in 2011. (The Ambassador which should open in the Fall)

I’m curious to see where Schrager will take these new hotel brands and exactly how they will be positioned, will the reasonably priced brand be priced similar to Starwood’s Aloft? Or will it be priced similar to a Sheraton/Westin, yet have the W Hotel feel? I predict the luxury brand will easily be positioned within the same level as the Four Seasons, or Ritz-Carlton – yet have a boutiquey feel, pretty similar to his creations with Morgan’s Hotel Group. From the story in today’s WSJ about the launch, the hotels in the less expensive brand will have hundreds of rooms, leading to the possibility that they could be convention center hotels, a unique pairing which I dont believe has been done yet – “stylish hotel convention centers”.

I also saw mentioned today that he is looking into hotels that have been in major cities for 30-40 years and need loving touches to bring them up to par to standards that people expect when staying in a hotel.

One thing I do like – and it sets the tone of his company and brands is the logo. I’m always fascinated by the logos that companies choose to represent for their brands – the good brands will choose a logo that has more than one meaning – not just a graphical representation of the comapny’s name.. A good logo will also set the tone of the brand – be it classy, funky, elegant, modern, etc.. Schrager Hotels does both of that. Let me explain how.. The logo is clearly a “SH” with the H superimposed over the S – but it can also appear as though the H is made up of two I’s – standing for Ian. Additionally the font they used is a font which reminds me of the Gothic look – which is excatly what some of his past creations have shown in their designs, case in point: the Gramercy Park Hotel.

In my opinion, there are really only two people who really set the standard for whats “next” in hotels – Barry Sternlicht and Ian Schrager. It will be fun to watch this brand grow and become what Morgans Hotel Group could have been.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

Today, she posted a story giving some details – not too many though – in fact many details aren’t even set in stone by Schrager himself.. But in a nutshell, he’s looking to create two new hotel brands, kinda like Morgans Hotel Group Pt II; a high end brand, and a low end brand.

Not surprisingly, the article states that neither of the brands will be considered competition to the Edition brand – but surprisingly he considers Edition a mid-tier hotel brand, whereas I always considered it pretty high-end luxury.

In fact, he states:

How would this compare to an Edition hotel, if hypothetically, one were to open in the same city? In the case the Ambassador East hotel, it would be the cheaper of the two, he said.

The first hotel will be the former Ambassador East in Chicago which Schrager purchased in April of this year with the intention of gutting it and putting his own name on it, instead of Edition as most expected.

Schrager’s idea of low priced boutique hotel may still be out most people’s budget, personally, I think low-priced boutique hotels would be in the range of $150-200, but Schrager is expecting the Ambassador East to average $225 a night.

The article also goes to mention that the company will grow slowly and look to purchase older, worn out hotels that haven’t been put to their full use in years. (I can think of one hotel which would be a great purchase – the Berkeley Carteret in Asbury Park – that would fit that criteria to the T).

Schrager isn’t out to re-prove himself, he’s done it already, I think he wants to create these brands, and these properties because he wants to and he feels there is a need to be filled. I think if Schrager can make a boutique brand at a low price point, it will really turn the boutique hotel industry on its head.

Going back to the comment about purchasing older, worn out hotels; I can almost picture it now: Ian Schrager as the Statue of Liberty “give me your tired, your poor……”

andrew@alconic-inc.com

Not much has been said about these new positions – the information was gleaned from an interview that Derek Gale, a writer from Hotels Magazine had with W’s Vice President of Brand Management.

W’s marketing focus will move even further toward events, with more fashion programming (like W’s backstage lounge at New York’s Fashion Week) and music release parties in cities across the globe.

The fact that they are willing to hire someone to be a music curator and a fashion director – for a hotel brand – speaks volumes about the direction Starwood sees W going in. It’s similar to what Starwood did with the LeMeridien brand when they started LM100, and its no coincidence that W’s new boss is Eva Ziegler, whose previous position was brand director at LeMeridien.

Alot of people may ridicule the W brand because of their attempt to be trendy and as well as their “commercialization” of the boutique hotel concept, but no matter what anyone says – they are very successful at it. Unlike some hotel brands that attempt to open hundreds of hotels a year, W sticks to opening just enough hotels that its still able to capture the feeling and the essence of W.

Some boutique hotel companies may do the boutique feel a little better – Thompson Hotels is the first that comes to mind, but their individual hotels are not part of one name-brand. Indigo Hotels is another brand that claims it’s a boutique and tries to give the boutique look and feel – but the segment the brand is in, and the acceptable standards that the hotel has would never reflect a true boutique brand. Not to say that Hotel Indigo is not a quality brand – it is, but it doesnt have the amenities that W would have.

For the majors, Starwood, Marriott, Hilton, Choice, Intercontinental, Wyndham - Starwood is still the only hotel company that has a real boutique hotel product in the market today. Hilton’s Denizen seems DOA, Marriott’s Edition is taking so long to get off the ground I’m wondering if it’s going through some major modifications, Wyndham & Choice don’t even look to be interested in a high-end brand, and Intercontinental has Hotel Indigo.

It’s going to take a lot of catching up to do for any new or existing hotel brand to eclipse the W as hotel brand that’s easy to replicate (relatively speaking of course) and has so many tie ins and marketing kicks that one-up W in the marketplace. The experience and the knowledge that Starwood has on W is tremendous – and a perfect example of that is the value placed on it in the pending Starwood/Hilton lawsuit.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

Perhaps this will be the beginning of the growth of the Morgans Hotel Group?

Morgan’s is uniquely able to lay claim to creating the first boutique hotel – but after almost 22 years, they still have only 10 hotels throughout the world, younger upstarts such as W Hotels, has almost triple the number of locations in a quarter of the time. Ever since Ian Schrager left Morgans, it seems as though the company has had difficulty getting back up on its feet in the development arena – not that the existing hotels have been suffering (they have become even more popular!) but the growth of the company just was not there. In the past few years the only things that have come out of Morgans are it’s ex-CEO’s infamous firing, purchase of the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas & the creation of the “Mondrian” brand, which Morgan’s seems to want to turn into its own chain – yet I don’t understand what makes all Mondrian’s alike vs Clift & Royalton.. Each and every Morgan’s hotel is designed differently from top to bottom, whereas if Morgans is trying to make Mondrian in to a brand, what will the brand be “known” for?

In any case, its great to see something happening with the Morgan’s development pipeline..

What is interesting about this is it’s one of the first projects that Morgan’s has undertaken with a major development partner being named first and foremost, in most of Morgan’s other projects, it has a majority interest in the hotel, whereas the Ames Hotel will only be 35% owned by Morgans – the reminder will be split between Ames Hotel Partners & Normandy Real Estate Partners.

An interesting fact in this whole thing is Normandy Real Estate Partners. Normandy is also a partner in The Chelsea hotel that is being built in Atlantic City by Cape Advisors, not only that – but Cape Advisors is also involved in building the Mondrian SoHo with Morgans Hotel Group. In otherwords, I’m a little surprised that Cape Advisor’s isn’t involved in the Ames Hotel since they have worked (or are working with) both Morgans & Normandy Real Estate. That doesn’t mean that every deal Morgans or Normandy is involved in requires them to bring in Cape Advisors, I just thought it was a little ironic.

I’m very interested to see what the Ames Hotel will turn out to be like – it’s the first hotel that Morgans has created from scratch that is not a Mondrian since Ian Schrager left the company. There have been plenty of rumors, and plenty of plans for additional Morgan’s hotels – mainly brand extensions of existing properties – the Delano & Mondrian in Las Vegas, Mondrian in South Beach & NYC. Call me crazy but it seems as though Morgan’s had such a great thing going by creating different hotel names – why not keep that up?

Hopefully the Ames will not get the bad reviews that the Royalton has been receiving since it was recently renovated, and as has been quoted in the news release – it will keep the same “avant garde” design as all existing Morgan’s Hotels have become famous for.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

Not much information was revealed except for the usual – where the first locations would be, and the fact that each location would be unique and designed differently from the next.  Additionally they made it clear that each hotel would be named after the town or area it is located in for example “New York Edition” or “Philadelphia Edition”. It’s a great naming strategy that is a great pun on words because not only does it incorporate the location of the hotel, but it also plays with each location being unique – as each location has its own “Edition” of Edition Hotels.

Great strategy!

One thing I was hoping would also be reveled is a website and at least some direction in regards to the design and marketing of the brands – but unfortunately nothing was announced, shown or activated.

Last week on the cover of Hotel Business magazine I came across what looks to be the official Edition Hotels logo, it was contained within an article about the launching of the Edition Hotel brand – as well as examples of how they will look with the city integrated into it, I could not find an electronic version of the cover, so I had to scan in the logos. Not only that but the city name integrated logos are in such a light font that its very difficult to make it out – even on the magazine, let alone the scanned version below

 
To the left and right of the larger Edition logo are the logos for “the los angeles EDITION” and “the new york EDITION” Click on the image to see an enlarged version.

I just wonder why Marriott did not publicize the logo in their press releases about the brand – every little bit helps when you are trying to market or spread the word about a new product. I find it hard to believe that its me who is one of the first to actually show the Edition hotel logo to the world.

Where’s my check Marriott??!!

andrew@alconic-inc.com

The Chicago Edition is being developed by Monaco Development, which primarily does residential projects, in fact this Edition is supposed to have a residential component – approximately 30 high end residences, in addition to the 250 hotel rooms and some street level retail space on the bottom of the building. The 51-story building is supposed to begin construction later this year with an opening scheduled for 2011, making the Chicago Edition one of the initial Editions to open.

There are no renderings of the interior of the hotel, yet, and I don’t expect to see them for awhile still, so for the time being we will have to make do with outside renderings. All in all, it looks like a typical modern office building – rather than a hotel or residential building, but the nice touches can be seen on the top floors where there seems to be balconies, and then toward the base of the building it look as though there is outdoor dining area.

Currently the site contains a few restaurants – well known ones that the locals do not want to see demolished, and the 50 story building that is going to replace it is not being looked forward to by the locals, but I think once the hotel comes in and opens they will enjoy its presence and the additional foot traffic it brings to the area.

I’m more curious to see what the interiors of these hotels look like, Schrager & Marriott are claiming that these hotels will be uniquely Schrager, and will stand apart from any of the current competition that exists today – if Schrager’s previous projects are any indication, I think we’ll all be very impressed with Edition.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

I haven’t been able to find a working website yet, www.EditionHotels.com does not lead to anything, (as of 9:30AM 1/29/08) but I checked the WHOIS record for EditionHotels.com and it was purchased by the Ian Schrager Company on November 1st, 2008.

According to two articles today, one in the Los Angeles Times and the other in the Washington Post, the first Editions are going to be in Paris and South Beach (a renovation/re branding of the South Beach Marriott)- the Paris property being the first to open in 2010.

Choosing the name “Edition” is actually genius – each hotel will be called “Town” Edition, for example, Los Angeles Edition, New York Edition, so on and so forth, currently they are expecting to open locations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Scottsdale, Costa Rica and Madrid. No word yet on the obligatory New York city location, but with Schrager supposedly working on a hotel in the Chelsea section, it is a possibility that one may open there – although I would expect New York’s first Edition to be in a more high-profile area. Supposedly they are working on another 20 deals

There are no renderings or logo or any details yet on what what the hotel experience will look like – hopefully they will launch a website today which will provide some information on that – but it is expected that the hotels will be easily recognizable as Ian Schrager products. Until more details are provided its difficult to tell if it will blow away W Hotels, or just finally be a serious competitor to the brand – it’s only taken Marriott 10 years!

Well, so far so good with this Schrager/Marriott partnership – I seriously had doubts that their partnership would go smoothly, but apparently they have so far proved everyone wrong. As I’ve stated before, I’m not a huge fan of Marriott – not because I don’t respect them, I do – they have a great business and are very well known but, their hotel product doesn’t excite me..

The potential of Edition Hotels does.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

This year, the conference is from Jaunary 28th, to 30th at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, CA, and I’m really excited to see what announcements are going to be made this year. The ALIS Conference is the one place where almost every hotel brand has an appearance, either on the exhibit floor or via a presentation, and it also seems to be where most of the major announcements are made for the year. Ok, maybe not the major announcements for the year – but every year something is announced which is in the headlines of the industry publications – and sometimes mainstream media for a few weeks after the fact.

Here are a few announcements that I think/am almost positive will be made this week:

1. Starwood Captial’s Le Crillon brand, and an overall update of Starwood Capital’s Hotel Groups plans.
2. The launching of Starwood’s aloft & element websites (aloft’s site was already launched today, Sunday 1/27/08).
3. Marriott & Ian Schrager’s new brand. The name, renderings, and locations of the initial few properties.
4. ALOT of announcements with the whole “Green Movement”.

And hopefully there will be a few surprises as well! I’m hoping to be able to post as much information as possible when I come across it over the next few days.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

Just read an article from the New York Post today which claimed that the name of the new Marriott/Schrager Hotels are going to be simply called “Schrager Hotels” Original huh? I was expecting and hoping that the brand would be something a little more original – something that isn’t exactly tied to Ian Schrager or Marriott – for example – Andaz, aloft, element, are unique names and make the guest want to know more about the brand. This is suprising because he initially claimed he will not put his name on the hotel brand – was that just a ploy?

I checked out the domain name for www.schragerhotels.com to see if there are any clues there and currently it redirects to Ian Schragers regular website – www.ianschrager.com. I checked the WHOIS information as to when the domain was registered and who owns it, and it was registered in 1997, and surprisingly is still “owned” by Morgans Hotel Group, although it probably was an oversight which hasn’t been corrected yet. Ian Schrager is great at branding himself and promoting himself, and I think that the Schrager Hotels name is fitting for what he is trying to do with Marriott – but I’m surprised he hasn’t used that name for his own hotel group, where he is supposedly starting a budget boutique brand later this year.

The first hotel is rumored to be the Marriott South Beach which is very fitting for a number of reasons, its in South Beach – where Schrager has a lot of experience, and its a very art-deco hotel which fits in well with the boutique feel that Marriott/Schrager is promoting with this partnership. While researching this article, I found something from 2001 when the Mariott South Beach initially opened – in that article it states how the hotel is going for a boutique feel – which, back in 2001 was almost unheard of for a hotel branded by one of the majors at the time. At the time, the article mentions that it was owned by Key International, but I can’t seem to find any information as to the current ownership, nor if any major improvements have been made since the article was published (although, on Marriott’s website, it states the hotel just went under renovations – but that sounds as though its just minor room upgrades – LCD TVs, etc).

The second rumored location is in New York City – it’s unclear if it is an existing hotel or a new hotel to be built from the ground up. It’s been known that Schrager has been working on some hotels on 10th Ave in Chelsea, although it is unclear if its going to be a hotel with Marriott’s partnership or a hotel/residence project he is doing on his own (his partnership with Marriott is not exclusive, meaning he can build his own hotels, or join up with other developers/companies at anytime).

According to the NY Post article, the official announcement will come later this month – probably at or during the ALIS Conference in Los Angeles, where I’m expecting Starwood Capital to formally announce their Crillion Brand.

I’ll post more information as I find out more details.

andrew@alconic-inc.com