Ian Schrager's Next NYC Project

Above, please find a gorgeous parking lot located on the corner of West 19th Street and 10th Avenue. Glorious, right? Really reminds you of colonial times. Anyway, what is now a parking lot is soon to be a new hotel project from the genius that is Ian Schrager. It's a bit of old news, but Schrager's plans to open a "combination of high-end hotels and less expensive hotels" on this site by 2009 seems doubtful. You know, credit crunch and all. But at least we all still get to use that parking lot, and then one day, people paying a lot of money and people paying a bit less will all get to stay right next to each other.

· An Interview With Ian Schrager [Portfolio]

Schrager Talks Edition

Maybe only fascinating to us, but Hotels Magazine has a nice little podcast interview with Sir Ian Schrager, who openly discusses his Edition Hotels partnership with Marriott. Some of the major highlights:

· There are currently 9 hotels under development now, with 30 expected to be in the planning phase by the end of 2008.
· Marriott's goal is to get at least 100 Edition hotels within 5 years, but Schrager would love to get at least 300 or 400. As many as possible.
· Each hotel will be extremely unique, with a different design company being responsible for a different Edition.
· For the first time Schrager's company may choose to operate the restaurant spaces within the properties, rather than outsource them as he has previously done. Ian says he has a ton of different concepts they could roll out.
· Each Edition will be as green as possible

This really is a fascinating idea that will either prove to be extremely successful or a tremendous bust. At no other time has a single entity sought to create a line of hotels that are all completely different. We wonder how one relatively small firm such as Schrager's, despite the power of Marriott behind it, can really expect to source, develop and market 100+ properties around the globe. But we certainly wouldn't want to bet against this guy.

[Photo Credit]

Can Ian Buy a W?

Yesterday, a little story made the rounds that Ian Schrager had purchased a building on Canal Street with plans to construct a W Hotel. Now, that's just umpossible, with the reason being Schrager has recently entered into a very long term deal with Marriott to jointly develop properties. Guess who owns W? Not Marriott! Scratch that idea. However, we do believe that this hotel could be a Schrager and Co. target. Why? Well, his old partner Morgans Hotel Group is bringing Ian's baby the Mondrian just to the West. Wouldn't it make Ian happy to grab a slice of the Chinatown pie and stick it to his old foes? DBTH says yes. But Morgan's definitely wins the locational battle, unless Ian's potential customers book rooms based on a need to catch the Chinatown bus. We're sticking with this one.