After hearing rumor after rumor that Ian Schrager's Edition will rise in what was a former church in the Adams Morgan section of DC, the Washington DC Business Journal has confirmed it will really happen. But you just have to wait until 2012 for it's opening.
DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commission has approved the plans from developers Brian Friedman (Friedman Capital) and Beztak Properties who are working with Marriott and Schrager to build this Edition.
Friedman will present his concept for the First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Euclid and Champlain streets NW, to the Historic Preservation Review Board on June 26. The property is up for historic landmark designation later this month.
Friedman will then begin the planned unit development process. He expects to break ground on the $100 million, nearly 180,000-square-foot project in December 2009.
The developers need to wait until December 2009 because part of the hotel will be located on an adjoining property whose tenant isn't moving out until that date.
We think Schrager/Marriott should just ask the tenant nicely to move out earlier. We are very impatient and don’t like to wait!!
Looks like Gramercy Park Hotel is going to be The Heartbreak Hotel for a little while for actress Anne Hathaway.
Page Six reports that Hathaway is shacking up in Ian's place while her ex, Raffaello Follieri gets a new rental in a Trump Tower. Reports say the two split because of all the shady stuff Follieri has been accused of such as misappropriating his charity funds and bouncing a $250,000 check.
But all is not lost yet. The ex-couple are reportedly expected to dine at Cipriani.
For now, we think Anne is in good hands. If anyone knows about financial trouble and the law, Anne needs to look no further than Ian Schrager himself who did time in jail for evading the IRS. There, there, Annie. Ian will make it better.
The NYT has an article today on the boutique hotel business in which they interviewed several hotel execs and got them to sound off on why boutique hotels are so successful these days.
Yes, it's 2008. No, you are not reading a post from 2004 that we mistakenly put up.
There's not much of interest in the article except the paper managed to interview a few big hoteliers like Ian Schrager (who is ok with selling out to Marriott), Jason Pomeranc and Michael Achenbaum of the Gansevoort Hotel Group, along with Thomas F. O'Toole, chief marketing officer for Hyatt Hotels.
However we did like Achenbaum's description of what his hotels aim to do:
“I want guests to think, ‘I got five-star service, but it was a fun version of five-star service,’ ” Mr. Achenbaum said. That means providing ample meeting space, free Internet access and staff that is responsive whether a guest needs dinner reservations or a computer cable, he said. It also means offering signature touches like a rooftop pool and wow factors like the 50-foot shark tank in the lobby in Miami.
Shark tanks! We're so easy to please over here.
As we write, all the big hotels and hoteliers are wrapping up the final day of the Tisch Center Hospitality Conference taking place at a non-boutique hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria.
Reality shows about hotels definitely don't work, but we have a suspicion that at least one documentary film about a hotel will be good. "Hotel Gramercy Park" has been playing this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, and it has its final screening tonight.
Director Douglas Keeve went inside the downtown landmark as Ian Schrager prepared the hotel for its grand re-opening. Keeve gives previous owners, the Weissberg family, plenty of screen time, and he tells the story of why the hotel has such a prominent place in New York's history.
If you're not gonna make the screening tonight, Jaunted has some ideas for enjoying the hotel and the surrounding neighborhood, including its namesake private park.
So a while back we heard some rumors that the Edition Hotel from our older-man crush Bill Marriott and boutique pioneer Ian Schrager would open in Washington DC in a former First Church of Christ Scientist church at Columbia Road and Euclid Street.
It looks like those rumors are getting closer and closer to truths. Again our tipster Lee W wrote us to say that the Dupont Current interviewed a developer who has plans for the site.
The details of the project is a 9-story boutiques hotel rising behind the First Church of Christ Scientist, with 150 guest rooms, a restaurant, one-to-two stories of penthouse condos, and "4,000 square feet of community space" to be able to build more on the site. The church itself will remain intact as the lobby and restaurant area.
While the developer Brian Friedman wouldn't name the hotel brands that he was working with, the reporter surmises it could be an Edition Hotel.
Interestingly, the building behind the church currently houses the Washington City Paper which is fitting for the Edition Hotel brand.
However, Lee W is psyched that:
Either way, DC might finally get an actually cool hotel!
Edition Hotels was formally announced this past January at the ALIS conference in Los Angeles and Marriott has created a news video on the event and uploaded it to YouTube. (Notice their customized page!)
There's nothing much new here that we haven't heard before about Edition Hotels but we do see a lot. Bill and Ian both speak on camera and are extremely excited about the project. Btw, Ian has found a perfect tan shade. And Marriott's Chief Financial Officer Arne Sorenson gets some screen time to talk about the planned nine locations and expects half of the Edition Hotels to be outside of the U.S.
The developers of Edition Paris and Edition Chicago also speak out, (the young one uses the word "synergy!) which makes us wonder if these two will be the first to open.
Then there's just a lot of party shots. Marriott threw a pretty swank party at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills with Cristal champagne, caviar on ice blocks, exotic flower arrangements and servers and bartenders pretty enough to work in some of Ian's hotels.
We can't tell if it's because we actually heard Bill Marriott talk instead of blog or if we just like a good party, but now we're excited again about Edition Hotels. (Which after the logo reveal was much-needed.) Now, if only we could jump in our time-travel machine to 2010.
It's been a while since we checked in with Edition Hotels after an initial flurry of hotel announcements and today Andrew Calvo has discovered the logo for the Bill Marriott-Ian Schrager love child.
And....here it is.
And...we're kinda bored.
Sure the sideways O is a nice touch but it does look like old newspaper font. Maybe in 20 years it will be nice to stay at an Edition Hotel and reminisce about the golden age of newspapers but for now this is pretty dull.
It's actually something we expect from Marriott but not from Schrager. Then again, Marriott's footing the bill. Here's hoping the hotels are better than this.
Last week we linked to an article from USAToday that said Washington DC's first Edition will be located on the "18th Street Corridor", well thanks to a great tip from Lee W, we juuuusssttt might have an idea as to exactly where Washington DC's first Edition Hotel will be located.
Apparently the locked down and closed First Church of Christ Scientist located at 1770 Euclid Street NW (a block away from 18th Street) was supposed to be converted into a condo building, but since the District's Historic Preservation Review Board wouldn't allow it, the developer, Brian Friedman, decided to build a boutique hotel instead.
Lee W writes:
A church would be quite a dramatic place for a boutique hotel in Washington, and really bring a lot of class to the neighborhood, though there are some great restaurants and bars in the area. But this site seems to make the most sense.
The plans include demolishing the Washington City Paper building located next to the former church then expanding the church building, while keeping its appearance on par with the church's aesthetics.
We'll see if this site does end up being an Edition or not - but one thing is for sure - converting a church into an Edition Hotel would fit perfectly with Ian Schrager's goal of making each Edition unique.
Does this mean we'll get morning church services along with our complimentary continental breakfast? I think that's one Schrager innovation Bill Marriott would go for.
