NEW YORK — Tom LaTour, chairman/CEO of Kimpton Hotels, said he just spent the past few days in New York, looking for boutique-hotel opportunities. LaTour, who noted that it is easier to purchase a hotel now than it had been in the past, said that there may be two deals brewing for Kimpton in the Big Apple, but that the company isn’t looking to buy a chain. “But, there could be two opportunities we could do at the same time,” he said of the possibilities in Manhattan. If Kimpton is able to secure properties in Manhattan it will fulfill a strategy the company has been seeking to fulfill, that of having a good stronghold in the Northeast. Meanwhile, Kimpton “has been turned loose,” and will start up its efforts again to stylize two hotels in Washington, DC which it will manage for LaSalle. The conversion of the two properties— the Clarion Hampshire House and a Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel and Suites— to Kimpton-style boutiques, had been stalled after September 11. Plans are to close them down in April and reopen them both in November. Kimpton successfully opened the Hotel Rouge for LaSalle in October. It also plans to open its own, owned Monaco hotel in Washington in June, which it is converting from an historic building. Kimpton will also soon operate a hotel in a third-party management deal in Boston, said LaTour. The CambridgeSide Hotel is set to open March 2003. The 236-room luxury hotel is being developed by Atlanta-based Hardin Capital at the cost of $61 million. It will be owned Cambridge Hotel LLC, a Connecticut-based commercial real estate investment management company. Other plans for Kimpton this year are to open a boutique hotel in Silicon Valley, CA as well as another property in San Francisco.
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