Ian Schrager said his two new hotel concepts will include a luxury lifestyle brand and an “incredibly stylish, reasonably priced” brand, which will be fully owned by his new company, Schrager Hotels.
The lower-end brand will be hotels of over 1000 bedrooms, while the higher-end hotels will be smaller and focused on luxury.
Although plans are yet to be confirmed, the idea is that the hotels will be rolled out internationally, with a focus on gateway cities such as London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Rio De Janeiro, Barcelona and Istanbul.
The first hotel under one of the new brands is expected to open in Chicago in September 2011. Although future hotels depend on the opportunities that arise, the goal is to open another 10-15 hotels internationally over the next five years.
Marriott collaboration
Schrager will continue his work with Marriott International, where he collaborates with the hotel group on its boutique Edition brands.
Marriott and Schrager first teamed up in 2007 to create the new boutique brand of hotels with up to 100 hotels around the world. The move was designed to help Marriott enter a new, “modern” genre of hotels, which aimed to be the first global branded boutique lifestyle hotel on a large scale.
Just last month, it emerged that Marriott had acquired the historic Berners Hotel in London, and will work with Schrager over the next two years to launch it as an Edition hotel.
Ian Schrager Company
At the same time, Schrager’s existing company – the Ian Schrager Company (ISC) – will continue to operate, although the focus is currently on residential properties in the US.
ISC was founded in 2005 after Schrager sold his previous company Morgans Hotel Group. It currently owns two top-end residential apartment complexes in New York, one of which also houses Schrager’s own home.
Until yesterday, ISC also owned an interest in the New York Gramercy Park Hotel. However, Schrager confirmed the sale of his interests in the hotel on Thursday.
“I received an offer that was just too good to refuse,” said Schrager. “I put 110 per cent into that hotel as I do with all of my projects, but it was time to move on and seek new challenges.”
“As always, I am committed to the idea that the future will always be better than the past. Accordingly, I plan to spend all of my time, energy and focus now on creating two new hotel brands for my new private hotel company, Schrager Hotels, in addition to continuing my work on Edition for Marriott.”