New York hotelier Ian Schrager announced in May a new boutique hotel brand, Public, that would kick off in Chicago.

True to his word, the property opened this month, and has been drawing accolades from locals suspicious that he would ruin the Ambassador or its famed Pump Room restaurant, which has reopened under chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Public's website explains the brand concept as "Ian Schrager has taken the best from the luxury segment, boutique hotels and select service to create a new genre of hotel where everything has been rethought and every original idea updated. At PUBLIC, service matters most. But the key point of differentiation is in the kind and quality of services it offers. The brand will only offer services that matter, those that guests really want and need rather than an array of superfluous services they do not use."Continue reading...

In 2007, Marriott International announced a partnership with boutique hotel pioneer Ian Schrager to develop a new boutique hotel brand called Edition. Four years later, there are just two of them: the first in Hawaii (the Waikiki Edition Hotel), followed by a much smaller property in Istanbul that opened only last month.

That's enough to make the owner of the first Edition upset — so upset, in fact, that M Waikiki LLC has filed a lawsuit seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages and the right to terminate the agreement with Marriott, the operator of the 353-room Waikiki Edition Hotel.Continue reading...

Ian Schrager, a trailblazer in the boutique-hotel movement of the mid- to late 1980s, has long been known for promoting a sense of exclusivity. From the 1970s moment he set up a velvet rope in front of the iconic New York club that he co-owned and cofounded, Studio 54, Schrager has seemingly been all about creating spaces that aren’t accessible to all.

Now it appears that the 64-year-old Schrager is going in the opposite direction, announcing Tuesday that he is developing five new hotels using the Public brand that “drew inspiration primarily from the retail outlets for Apple and Trader Joe's, a supermarket that sells specialty products at a discount,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

"This is for everyone that wants it," he told the WSJ. "It's not about being a stylish hotel. It's really trying to get away from the iconic over-the-top blow-the-customer-away kind of design that people are sick of. It's become a Frankenstein monster and being replicated by companies who don't understand the purpose."

His hotels that he created for his Morgans Hotel Group and Ian Schrager Company were all about design and luxury service along with large public spaces that included bars and restaurants. Public is taking a different tack.Continue reading...