We had heard the rumblings and now we have confirmation: Gansevoort Toronto is in the works.
This will be the fourth property from the Gansevoort hotel Group--there's the flagship in NYC, Gansevoort South in Miami Beach and the upcoming Gansevoort Park on Park Ave South--and it will include residences. The hotel will also be very green as it's expected to be Toronto's first ever LEED-certified hotel/residence. Indeed, Gansevoort Toronto is hoping to be the model for "environmentally building and living."
But don't worry! It won't be like totally boring or anything. For starters, look at that crazy design. If you look closely, you can make out the vertical hanging gardens. The hotel also will have a rooftop pool (natch) and it's located in the city's Richmond Street district, a fashion and entertainment hub.
Now, we wonder how Thompson Hotels, who are opening their own hotel with a pool and an ice rink, feel about this announcement.
Since its opening earlier this year, there has been some drama over at the Gansevoort South in Miami: the first guest reviews were not exactly glowing -- well, at least not compared to the glowing fire that broke out on the rooftop in April. Yeah. Crap all around.
And on Friday, we caught wind of some really awful news involving the hotel: the Miami Herald reported that Arturo Ortiz Soto, a chef at the sushi bar on the Gansevoort's swanky rooftop, confessed to being a "serial rapist":
After his arrest Wednesday on a charge of attempted sexual battery, Ortiz Soto confessed to sexually assaulting two other women in Miami Beach, on June 24, 2008, and Nov. 2, 2006, police said. He told police he would lure the women into alleys, attack them and steal their cellphones so they couldn't call for help.
Ugh. What this means for the Gansevoort doesn't really matter -- we're just happy this dude is off the streets.
As excited as we are to have a piece of Gansevoort Hotel on Park Ave South (especially since the Meat Packing District may soon become a "No-Go" Zone), we will probably have to wait a little bit longer than we would like.
A tipster on the street sent us these construction shots...if you can call them construction as it looks like the ground is just being turned over here.
For now, the Gansevoort Park at 29th Street is expected to open its 250 guest rooms in May 2009. Does it take less than a year to build a building from scratch? We're not sure but you bet we'll be watching this one very closely.
The Gansevoort South has been open for nearly three months now but an email just arrived in our inbox announcing $99 room rates (based on availability of course) as a way to celebrate the hotel's opening and the opening of the Philippe Chow restaurant and the Cutler Hair Salon.
Aside from the low off-season rate, the hotel is also offering guests 15 percent off when dining at Philippe and 25 percent off Cutler services during its first month open.
However, don't be so quick to book just yet. The email itself was a little blurry, so we're still not sure if this is actually an honest promotion or if the Gansevoort is a victim of some clever spam. Plus, $99 even for Miami in the off-season is as serious steal.
We did look for those low rates this summer but managed to only find a steady rate of $195 in July for a deluxe double. August increased to about $235.
We have an email in to the hotel to determine exactly if this is a real deal or not and if it's legit, how to go about and get a $99 room rate. So Stay Tuned!
On this very special Friday, we bring you (via Curbed) a view of the swanky Hotel Gansevoort looking oh-so...Euro.
Just to review, Gansevoort is not only a hotspot for celebs seeking privacy and chic digs, but also supposedly one of the "sexiest" NYC hotels.
While we don't judge books by their covers (unless they happen to be hotels and their covers happen to be outdated and gross), we can't help but notice that the item on the far right appears to be either a pair of Manpris (capri pants for dudes) or -- worse -- jean shorts.
We hope those guests European (where Manpris are common and cool) -- otherwise that's some pretty dirty laundry.
The Gansevoort South has been in soft opening for a couple of months now, and there's still plenty of facilities guests are waiting for. The long-promised David Barton gym still doesn't seem to be open and there are a few teething problems if the reviews from early guests are anything to go by.
To start with the good news, though, everybody seems to like the pools. And most early guests have been pretty understanding that a soft opening means their stay might not be perfect, and agree that the hotel looks fantastic enough to make up for that.
On the bad news side of the equation, we've heard that eating near the pool is too windy (until everything opens, the alternative is in a hallway), promised toiletries aren't provided, and the lack of guests and finished facilities means that the potentially hip vibe is totally missing.
Yet most early guests are preparing to come back and stay again when the Gansevoort South is operating in full swing--so they must be doing something right.
We already told you that The Gansevoort South is accepting reservations on its website for January 28th but we didn't know exactly how much. Now we do and we yearn for the days when we were still in the dark. That's 'cuz deluxe doubles for January 28th are starting at $595. So much for any introductory rates.
We skipped on over to Perfect Escapes and found the exact same thing. And if you want a city view, that will cost extra at about $645 a night. An ocean view? Expect to cough up $810 a night for one of these rooms which feature two queen beds and a balcony. Anyone have get-rich-quick schemes we should know about? Oh great, now just because we wrote that the amount of spam mail we get just quadrupled....
An item in today's Page Six column reported that Chinese restaurant Philippe from chef Philippe Chow, in the Gansevoort South hotel was set for a December opening.
When we quizzed the hotel's PR reps about this they told us, there is still no set opening date for the hotel but they expect it to open sometime in the Winter 2007/2008 time frame. Usually, hotel restaurants don't open before the hotel so we wouldn't expect Philippe to be open by December either.
Meanwhile this Philippe restaurant chain will expand to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas when that hotel opens in late 2009.
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by juliana
