NEW YORK—Despite all the coverage their properties get, the men behind some of New York’s most boldface, chi-chi hotels are two of the most intentionally low-profile hotel developers/owners in town, who, despite their best efforts, keep finding themselves in the spotlight. In their portfolio, Richard Born and Ira Drukier, the principals of BD Hotels, have hotels like The Pod, The Maritime, The Chambers, The Mercer, The Bowery, The Jane and The Greenwich. While these properties may not have the global recognition of a Holiday Inn (they own one of those, too), in the world inhabited by New York fashionistas, glitterati and cognoscenti, they are the type of hotels one must know about and, in many cases, be seen at. Born and Drukier have ownership interest in 22 hotels representing about 5,000 rooms, and 20 of those are located in Manhattan. BD Hotels also developed and manages The Chambers hotel in Minneapolis and TownHouse in Miami. BD Hotels is the operating arm for the portfolio, which runs the gamut from the economic 347-room Pod Hotel that features bunk beds in 90 rooms and rates starting at $89 per night to the luxury Greenwich Hotel, which the pair opened with partner and actor Robert De Niro earlier this year in the New York neighborhood of Tribeca. Partners for more than two decades, Born and Drukier consider themselves real estate developers who have found a comfortable niche in New York hotels. “We tend to be situation driven, not vision driven. We don’t walk out there and say I want to build a four-star, boutique hotel in SoHo. We scour the marketplace—at this point in our lives we have the luxury of people knocking on our doors—looking at opportunities. Now when properties are presented to us we do the analysis to determine what works best,” said Born. The Bowery Hotel, located at Bowery and Third Street, is an example. The property originally was being constructed as a dormitory. The building permit reportedly was lost because of technical problems with the plans and it was recommended BD Hotels take it over. It did and, together with celebrity hoteliers Eric Goode and Sean MacPherson, Born and Drukier created an upscale property in an unexpected market that draws an elite crowd. BD Hotels also is partners with Good and MacPherson in the round-windowed Maritime and The Jane on West Street, a conversion of an SRO hotel formerly known as The Riverview. Then there’s the Greenwich Hotel. With its high-profile connection to the celebrity world, the property is what Born describes as the “penultimate” hotel. “We probably spent not much less than $1 million a room building it,” he estimated. Part of that money came from approximately $39 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds offered as part of post-9/11 recovery efforts. “That was a real passion. Robert De Niro wanted to build something that he would feel comfortable in. There’s a lot of his own aesthetic, a lot of his own input about what he thought should go into a hotel. And Ira himself has a fairly artistic eye for things and they spent a lot of time really searching out stones and mosaic tile work. It really is a tour de force,” said Born. BD Hotels has a penchant for out-of-the-way properties. “We’ve always looked at the new areas only because, in general, they’re bad areas. When we went into The Maritime it wasn’t a neighborhood anybody wanted to go in. And nobody looked at putting a hotel in the Bowery because there were bad people on the street,” said Drukier. In determining the risk factor of such moves, Drukier said, “I think we’ve come to grips with the fact that when we put a good hotel in a location, it changes the nature of the neigborhood a little bit.” Born noted the economy Pod Hotel, a conversion of the Pickwick Arms on 51st Street, was as much an opportunity as some higher-end projects. “We were given the choice of gutting out to about 100 to 110 standard hotel rooms or, for less cost, leaving the existing configuration in place and having some 350 rooms. We just thought there’s intense demand for moderately priced rooms and we decided to go with the bigger number,” said Born. “We decided to take a shot at doing a hotel that is luxury in every sense except for the size of the room,” added Drukier. At the time, some industry observers were less than supportive of such a concept smack in the middle of midtown. “We have always been called ‘nuts.’ I remember walking through the Maritime hotel with Ian Schrager right after we bought it before we did any work. I remember Ian turned to me and said, ‘Tell me you’re not out of your mind.’ He didn’t understand the neighborhood (West 16 Street and Ninth Avenue), didn’t understand the building (its windows look like port holes), couldn’t understand what we were doing and why we were doing it,” said Born. Similarly, Drukier said that when the duo went to do The Mercer, a friend who owns an office building two blocks away said, “What are you guys crazy? No one’s going to stay down here.” Drukier added that friend “had been in that office building for 20 years and he didn’t see the area changing around him. That happens a lot.” The Pod has been “hugely successful,” crowed Born. “I would say at a $1-per-square-foot basis it takes in more money than any hotel we own.” Year-to-date occupancy is 93% and ADR is $170, he said. In fact, industry observers comment BD Hotels could have its own brand, particularly with a concept like the Pod Hotel. However, until now, Born and Drukier have shied from the idea. “We probably have three, four or five brands that we could roll out; the Pod is uniquely compelling,” said Born. “We have had 1,400 press mentions or articles about the Pod in an 18-month period. We have so many people making overtures to us to do either multiple other ones in New York or go to Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris. And frankly, it’s very tempting. We are having conversations with people both in New York and outside of New York about replicating it and we’re having some institutional conversations about actually making The Pod into a real company rather than running it out of our back pockets,” said Born. Indeed, it’s part of why the pair remains what to some might seem “quirky.” There is no corporate office and neither partner has ever shared office space with the other. In fact, Born’s office is in another owned hotel, The Wellington, and Drukier has space at 375 Greenwich St., next to the Greenwich Hotel. Cell phones are the order of the day for the two. “I’ve seen people in partnerships where both partners go to every problem or deal together. I feel if Richard is there he’s defending my rights as much as his and I have no concern that he would do anything that would hurt me. We both don’t need to be there,” said Drukier. “Ira and I have a fairly interesting partnership,” agreed Born. “The real division of labor is he has his projects and I have mine. We’re 50-50 partners in everything we do, but in a sense I’m almost outside half the projects I’m involved in. It’s also interesting in that we then each have somebody whose interests are aligned who’s not consumed with day-to-day development/operations of any project that we can reach out to for advice.”
