Looks like the Hotel Indigo chain is making good on its promise to always have interesting art in its hotels.
The Boston Traveler reports that the Hotel Indigo in the Newton 'nabe will display some of John Lennon's artwork at the hotel this weekend as part of a two-day art exhibit called, "Power to the People."
Billed as "a look into John's life through his artwork," the event will feature the largest collection of Lennon's art on paper from the years 1968 to 1980, including limited-edition prints and song lyrics, that express Lennon's stance on peace, hope, and love.
The exhibit takes place June 28-29 from 11am to 6pm. The cost is just $2.00 at the door, which benefits the Boys and Girls Club of Boston.
Save the Las Colinas Mustangs!...From the hotel invasion!
Much like what developer Sam Chang is doing in New York--putting two or three hotel brands in one building--the Intercontinental Hotels brand is hoping to do the same thing in the master-planned community of Las Colinas in Irving, Texas, a sort of suburb close to Dallas.
Las Colinas has been a breeding ground as of late for these new types of boutique-y chain brands aimed at business travelers since the community is home to 2,000 companies and serves as the global HQs for a few Fortune 500 companies. Already, Las Colinas will be getting an Aloft and a NYLO.
The Hotel Indigo Las Colinas will feature design elements such as guestrooms with hardwood flooring and spa-inspired showers and amenities such as a fitness studio, hotel bar, a 24-hour business center and meeting space for business functions or special events. Complimentary high-speed wireless Internet access will be available throughout the hotel.
The Crowne Plaza Las Colinas will offer more than 8,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space and include a restaurant, lounge, business center and gift shop.
Both hotels will have separate entrances yet will share a fitness center and swimming pool. We're guessing there should be some rate differences as well but no word on what those will be. The hotels (hotel?) will open in 2010.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same city and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on April 28, 2008 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
We went looking at boutique hotels in Chicago to answer a question. How bad would the damage be if a husband wanted to take the mother of his children away for the weekend? We pulled up the nights of May 9 and 10 and came out better than expected, with nightly rates under $200 before taxes at Hotel Sax, Raffaello Hotel, Kimpton's Hotel Monaco, and W Chicago City Center.
So why is a standard at the sorta-hip 3.5-star corporate boutique chain Hotel Indigo nearly $600 (with taxes) for the entire weekend? (Not per night.) That's more than the Good Rate at Affinia Chicago, without the junior suite, the Asti Spumanti, and the edible chocolate body frosting.
They are offering an "Indigo Indulge" package pictured here, but to call it underwhelming would be too kind. For an extra $20 a night you get a dessert to split and some Starbucks coffee. Couldn't we just buy that ourselves for, oh I don't know, $20?!
It took the developers of Hotel Indigo Nashville a while to transform a blocky concrete office building into a hotel with style, but the wait was worth it. We got to spend the night in room 710 (see the video tour here), spreading out in a city view room with plenty of attractive lighting, a hip living room with nods to the 1950s, and free WiFi that actually worked in multiple locations.
But first, what does it look like? Find out after the jump.
Like Starwood's W chain, the ICH group's new Hotel Indigo line is a "branded boutique hotel," meant to be hipper than your usual hotel chain, but not so hip that it will put off business travelers. Indigo goes all Zen on us, with a Haiku on the side of the building, moving images projected on the hallway walls, and decorating touches that change with the seasons.
We'll have a full review of the just-opened Hotel Indigo Nashville next week, but meanwhile here is a video tour of room 710, a spacious city view room with two flat-screen TV's and a vaguely mid-20th-century collection of furniture. Enjoy!
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same region and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quoted here were captured on September 12, 2007 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
When the Holiday Inn on Main Street in Dallas converted to the reasonably priced Hotel Indigo brand, it generally got good reviews from guests. Of course most of those guest were paying between $90 and $130, not the $240 the hotel is charging during the Texas State Fair.
Like the price of umbrellas on a rainy day, these hotel rates have shot up substantially during the fair, putting the Indigo on par with hotels that have much larger rooms and more amenities. When we checked dates after the fair, rates had dropped down to $120 for a weekend standard, exactly half the price. Let's see, that's about, ummmm...48 corn dogs!
Looks like Yotel isn't the only "modern" brand that can go on an expansion binge. InterContinental has announced plans to open its third Texan Hotel Indigo in San Antonio. The new property has an ambitious opening date of "early 2008."
The Hotel Indigo at the Alamo will take up residence in the Gibbs Building downtown, but it won't be the first hotel to repurpose a downtown building. The Drury Plaza Hotel San Antonio River Walk opened in a renovated Art Deco bank this past February. If the PR spin is to be believed, though, the Indigo might be a touch more classy:
Hotel Indigo at the Alamo will feature renewable elements such as vivid murals, area rugs, plush duvets and slip covers that will change periodically. Public spaces will be transformed seasonally through changing artwork, music, flora, murals and directional signage.
A new Hotel Indigo is set for Chelsea in 2009, according to the NY Post. Intercontinental has staked out the property at 127 W. 28th St and will turn the lot into a 20-story, 122-room hotel designed New York-based architect Nobutaka Ashihara.(Artist's rendering at right.)
The airy rooms will feature periodically changing photographic wall murals, area rugs and linens.
Kinda like a mood ring we guess.
But the biggest thing to watch on this Indigo hotel is that pricing will be "similar" to Andre Balazs' Standard Hotel properties in LA which the Post reports as starting at $100.
However, we checked the Standard on Sunset for a weekend night in March and rooms were going for $225. The weeknight rate was $199. Downtown was a little cheaper with a weekend rate of $149 and a weeknight rate of $119.
Still, we can't image ICH would be so dumb as to charge $100 a night for a NYC hotel. Especially when we checked the going rates for the Hotel Indigo in Scottsdale and for a weekend night rooms were going at $229. Don't you just love hotel hype?
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by juliana
