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!!
For spontaneous travelers and hotel geeks like ourselves, there is some good news in all of this recession and economic woes talk: hotels won't be raising room rates as much or as frequently in the near future. In fact, there may be some discounts abound!
Many hoteliers and CEOs sounded off at the NYU Tisch Hospitality Center conference last week, which Andrew Gindy dutifully reported on for us.
According to BTN Online, Bill Marriott even said that discounting will probably start happening. Yet it was Barry Sternlicht who seemed to have the bleakest outlook on the hotel market:
Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, said to expect the softening to continue for at least 18 months....
"The U.S. consumer is stretched, and we've been waiting for him to collapse for quite some time. Businesses will do what they've always done in every cycle: tighten their belts," Sternlicht said. "It's going to be worse before it gets better."
Whoa, Barry Downer. He's probably just depressed that he's trying to launch a chain of luxury hotels in these trying times.
Bill Marriott's baby boy, David Marriott, 34, was just named Regional Vice President of hotel operations in New York City, Baltimore and Philadelphia -- three of Marriott's key markets.
Is he being groomed to take over the family company? Maybe, says the Washington Post:
Although Bill Marriott, who recently turned 76, says he has no plans to retire soon, that hasn't stopped rampant speculation about his successor, especially because in the company's 81 years there have been only two chief executives, both with the last name Marriott. The topic is so sensitive that most people in the hotel industry will not talk publicly about it.
In his new position, David will be the go-to guy for hotel ops in those three cities, and he'll get to experiences all facets of the day-to-day operations of the properties.
Is he being groomed to be THE Marriott in charge when Bill Marriott eventually retires to become a full-time blogger? Time will tell.
Hotel investors meet up at the spot in the Waldorf where they get five bars cell reception.
What a crazy last two days! The biggest hotel conference of the year just wrapped up yesterday afternoon at the Waldorf=Astoria after two days full of guest speakers, informative panels, excellent networking opportunities, and numerous cocktail parties. Over 2,500 attendees were there to witness the hotel madness, including us.
Ok. If you are a devoted reader of HotelChatter and you catch our semi-regular recaps on Bill Marriott's "Marriott on the Move" blog, then you will know that we have always doubted that Bill, at the tender age of 76, is a real blogger.
In fact, in our last recap of a Marriott post we surmised how Bill "writes" his blog posts.
The protocol we believe goes from Bill Marriott to his secretary's steno pad, then to her typewriter then to the communications department via interoffice memo...
While we still don't know the exact protocol of the blog writing, Bill did confess to not writing every blog post. Derek Gale at Hotels Magazine reports:
Mr. Marriott also admitted this morning that when it comes to his blog, he write some of the posts, and his PR department writes and fleshes out some of the posts for him. But he says most of the ideas are his, and notes that he is "still waiting for my commission" on the US$4 million in business that has been booked from his blog!
Sigh. It's like this, we knew the truth would be ugly. But we aren't prepared to deal with this heartbreak so early in the AM.
Gone are the fantasies of us and Bill blogging and laughing side-by-side in Starbucks, tagging one another on Facebook pictures, lugging our laptops through the airports together, helping each other search under hotel room desks for outlets, griping about internet fees on our check-out bill--oh the pain is too much! The future looked so bright for us.
Alas, he was not the blogger we hoped him to be. But the folks at Marriott's communication dept. deserve a big raise.
According to Mr. M's latest post he stopped by his property's latest roll-out -- welcomed by adoring staff and the hotel's general manager.
They took a see-through elevator ride to check out the overhaul, spearheaded by architect John Portman, whose other properties include the New York Marriott Marquis, the Westin Warsaw, and the Hyatt Regency Hangzhou.
Portman is a big fan of immense, dramatic atriums, and the Atlanta Marriott delivers -- according to Bill, it has a 47-story atrium, a gargantuan indoor sculpture reminiscent of an oriental letter, a unique semi-convex exterior, a lobby bar, Pulse, that sits beneath a giant blue sail that changes color throughout the day, and thousands of feet of meeting space.
While you may want to swim at the Marriott in Manhattan, visiting the Marriott in Baghdad probably doesn't sounds so refreshing.
The Washington Post said Bill Marriott and co. were contemplating opening a hotel in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad. Um yeah, that sounds crazy.
Opening a Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh is one thing. But moving into Baghdad is quite another. The Green Zone has been a frequent target of attacks by insurgents. A recent flare-up, when 114 rocket and mortar rounds fell in the Green Zone during a 30-day period ending in late April, showed the unpredictability of the danger.
Marriott is actually aggressively attempting to expand its presence in the Middle East from 26 to about 75 over the next several years. Yet we say, maybe Marriott should work on streamlining their WiFi policy before they start building in Iraq?
Corporate blogs are all the rage these days, presumably designed to let the corporate moo-vahs and shake-ahs communicate directly with adoring fans who want to know more. And in the hotel world, Bill Marriott, Chairman and CEO of Marriott International, has jumped onto the heap with his blog, Marriott on the Move.
While we are still convinced Bill is dictating his blog posts to a secretary, he does try to keep relevant. For instance, there's his take on immigration reform as it relates to the travel industry, and his post about the company initiative to teach employees Spanish. Of course, there's some questionable posts like his recommendation of "The Bucket List" but our fave is his latest.
Here, Bill talks about his chain's historic properties, including Chicago's Blackstone (with a wonderfully produced video covering the grand re-opening), and Dublin's Shelbourne.
He also has this to say about The Mayflower in Washington, DC:
The Mayflower hotel in Washington, D.C. was the site of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inaugural ball back in the early 1930s. Also, J. Edgar Hoover used to have lunch at the Mayflower all during his tenure. Eleanor Roosevelt had afternoon tea there, and there have been many other famous people who have stayed there. What a lot of people don't know is that, in addition to being a famous hotel, the Mayflower is one of more than 140 Renaissance hotels around the world.
Mr. M conveniently omits the Mayflower's more recent notoriety -- it's the same hotel where Client 9, aka former New York State Luv Guv Eliot Spitzer, spent the night in room 871 conducting some unofficial gubernatorial hoo-hah.
Sure, it's not great PR for the chain, Bill, but it sure would make for awesome post fodder if you blogged about it.
For spontaneous travelers and hotel geeks like ourselves, there is some good news in all of this recession and economic woes talk: hotels won't be raising room rates as much or as frequently in the near future. In fact, there may be some discounts abound!
