NEW YORK— Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants is set to open its 40th property and at the same time make its entrée into the Big Apple. Occupying the site of the former Doral Park Avenue in the residential Murray Hill section, the Kimpton 70 Park Avenue Hotel will open July 19 under GM and industry veteran Andrew Schlesinger. It follows the May opening of The Onyx Hotel, Kimpton’s new and second property in Boston and plays into the company’s strategy of “evolving Kimpton into a much more visible brand,” according to its Chairman/CEO Tom LaTour. During a hard-hat tour of the 205-room Manhattan property, LaTour called the hotel the perfect deal. “We had been wanting to be in New York for years and years. When we surveyed our customers and asked where would you like us to have a Kimpton hotel where we’re not, number-one on the list was New York City. So, I’ve been dying to be in New York, but the deals we saw weren’t perfect. This was a perfect deal,” he told HOTEL BUSINESS®. LaTour said Kimpton will soon be entering other markets to meet guest demand, including San Diego; South Beach, FL; Atlanta; Baltimore; and Philadelphia. In New York, Kimpton, in partnership with a pension fund advisor, acquired the 17-story hotel at a bankruptcy sale for an “opportune price…we’re at about $275,000 a key, all in. So in New York terms, that’s medium-high.” The hotel is held under Park Avenue Hotel Associates. The San Francisco-based luxury boutique hotel chain had been scouring the midtown Manhattan market for a site, coming close more than once. “Over these last several years we’ve seen many deals, but we were not able to close on them, either because the price was too high or the size and structure of the physical plant wasn’t up to our standard,” said the CEO, noting some properties Kimpton had made offers on, e.g., the Helmsley Windsor, eventually became residential and/or condominiums. “So we compete with residential developers in New York unlike most markets where the residential prices aren’t quite as high and we can get good bargains on real estate,” he said. Since the building had been operating as a hotel, there was not much change made to the floor plate configuration. However, the bathrooms were gutted to modernize them and put in more guest-rooms where there had been large suites. The top floor of the hotel had once been an owner’s suite, “but it was way too big for a traditional hotel room” said LaTour. “So where there was once one suite there are now four suites, so we gained some key counts.” The total revamp is estimated at $20 million. The hotel is being positioned toward corporate and leisure travelers, and offers a 1,000 square-foot meeting room. Seasonally adjusted, rates will range from $269 to $559. Kimpton plans to leverage the Park Ave. address and its tony connotations, although its Murray Hill location places it in one of the city’s more residential— albeit upscale— neighborhoods. “There are really only six hotels on Park Ave. The Regency, The Waldorf[-Astoria], our hotel, The Kitano, the Russell and the Giraffe; the W considers itself to be Union Square. It’s an exclusive address. Park Ave. is known throughout the world, so it’s your pied-à-terre on Park Ave.,” said LaTour. Schlesinger noted a lobby-level restaurant also will help solidify the hotel with the neighborhood, and trade on Kimpton’s reputation for food and beverage operations. Director of sales and marketing David Chu said the 94-seat restaurant will have its own entrance on East 38th St. Among several unique features will be space designated for a shared table, where 10 diners may eat “family style.” The bar, with a 50-inch LCD flat-screen television, will accommodate 34 persons. “The screen will loop nostalgic movies on New York,” said Chu. The jet-black marble lobby will host a mahogany front desk with an angled, almost three-dimensional relief photo. At presstime, under consideration was a pigeonhole mail and information center “li