​I enjoy and often write about the operational and people side of our industry but this series is about the bricks and mortar side. The lessons learned from planning. The long horizons and timelines of real estate and urban development.
 
Soon after the demise of Robert Campeau’s Boston Crossing I arrived in Boston and took up my role as General Manager of the Lafayette Swissotel. The 500 room property was a component of the mixed use Lafayette Place – which was the core of the would be Boston Crossing. The hotel had been built originally as an Intercontinental Hotel. Just pre-opening, Bass, the parent owning company was shedding assets and sold off 3 or 4 US properties. Swissair and Nestle ownership, with their new Swissotel brand, purchased the Boston property and re-flagged it in time for a grand opening, Swiss guards and all.
 
After 5 dismal years of performance, the failed promise of Campeau’s vision for Boston Crossing, the absolute failure of the Lafayette mall retail component, the continued downward spiral of Washington Street and Downtown Crossing, and the overall economy of the country I was parachuted in to ‘turn things around’. It was a beautiful hotel in an ugly building in a terrible neighborhood in an awful economy. Being owner operators put me in a dual role. One as an Innkeeper practicing the art of hospitality under the iconic Swiss brand and the other as property owner representative in one of the most blighted urban markets in the country. Despite the challenges of ‘location’ we operated a magical, warm hospitable oasis in the middle of the Combat Zone. It was like the images of post war Europe where you would see the staff of a hotel particulier scrubbing the sidewalks while next door was a bomb site.
 
One key lesson I learned on the real estate side was that there is a huge difference in the shelf life of retail versus institutions. The mall went bankrupt and went through planning iterations of retail visions that never materialized. Every BRA (Boston Redevelopment Authority) meeting promoted rose tinted visions of a brighter future for Downtown Crossing; every lease on Washington Street was going to be the beach head to turn the critical mass of success; even the name change from Jordan Marsh to Macy’s, with the loss of 4 floors of retail was spun as a positive step forward. The Lafayette mall itself had different plans that never materialized and eventually it became an urban office park.
 
Lesson learned.  While retail came and went, and continues to do so, two academic institutions and three theatrical landmarks have bravely anchored the still troubled neighborhood. Berkeley School of Music and Suffolk Law Library are the two academic institutions that have bookended Tremont Street. Berkeley almost moved from Boston 30 years ago but instead of urban flight planted their flag on Boylston and Tremont on the edge of Chinatown and the theatre district; and Suffolk Law under the leadership of David Sargent, at that time, built a beautiful law library and then politely named it after David. The three theatres, The Paramount, The Opera House and The Modern were another story and their survival and now success was the direct result of the actions of the then mayor, Tom Menino who set an architectural charette in motion and obtained landmark designation for the three moribund properties.
 
It is comforting to know that in the long run ballet, opera, chamber music, black box theatre, the learning of law, and the study of the broadcast arts will long outlive the departed (and beloved) Filene’s basement and the Holiday displays of Jordan Marsh.

 

 
The Lafayette Place – the 90’s
 
Let’s start before I ever traveled to Boston let alone transferred up from New York to manage the Lafayette Swissotel. The then Boston General Manager was staying with me in New York while he attended meetings for the Master Planning of a project called Boston Crossing which was comprised of the Lafayette Place parcel which included the hotel and the moribund mall that connected the hotel to the second parcel, Jordan Marsh the landmark New England department store. The third lot and final piece was the infamous Hayward parcel across Avenue de Lafayette.
 
A Canadian developer, Robert Campeau had acquired separately through massive leverage the department store chains Allied and Federated that included Jordan Marsh and Bloomingdales. His vision was to have a super mixed use urban center with over 3 ¼ million square feet. The project would be bookended by Jordan Marsh and Bloomingdales with a massive atrium mall in the middle. The fledgling Hotel would abut the atrium and the rooms up to the seventh floor on that façade would be inside the atrium overlooking the mall. (this was the same era of the birth of ‘Mall of America”).  The project was going to be the saving grace, the turnaround project for Boston’s notorious Combat Zone! The podiums created by the department stores would be topped by 400foot towers. Across Washington Street from the Bloomingdales site was the Avery Hotel parcel which was going to be the Federal courthouse and the adjacent, ghostly Opera House, under the leadership of Sarah Caldwell was going to be reborn. A utopian future for the downtown retail and theatre district. A real estate dream!
 
The problem with masterplans and real estate dreams is that they move the goalposts while you are coming down the back stretch! Joe Moakley, the congressional native son of Southie grabbed the courthouse and dragged it across the channel to his longtime congressional district. (Today we have the harborside Moakley courthouse not far from the Moakley bridge.) Sarah Caldwell a true musical genius lacked the business skill or luck to survive. I believe the electric bill was the last straw despite the intervention of the local Cardinal.

Then the economy did what economies do about once a decade and it crashed leaving Campeau’s empire drowning in a tidal wave of debt. The Bankruptcy ended the fantasy of Boston Crossing and left the Lafayette Mall parcel in the hands of Chemical Bank the receiver. 
 
The Hotel portion was owned and operated by Swissotel a partnership between Swissair and Nestle. As the neighborhood staggered from the broken promise of the Campeau megaplan the bottom line of the hotel plumbed new depths of red ink. Zurich brought in the management consultants. Lots of reorganization and severe cost cutting and a change of leadership. That is when I got the short straw and was transferred up to Boston to turn things around. ..to be continued ....
 
 
 

We recently went off for a short trip to visit relatives and found ourselves needing a convenient place for one night. The ease, comfort and confidence of booking a hotel room in a big familiar city was replaced with the task of finding the right stay in a small up country New England town. Shades of Stephen King!
 
Comfort, cleanliness and security mixed with a genuine smile and efficient process are always the key criteria. Value helps, the rates are a relief from the cosmopolatan sticker shock one never gets used to in your favorite big city but all markets are competitive so you want and need to shop.   
 
Though I could book on line and have an algorithm solve the matter I prefer to call the property and book from the desk. Reputation and past experience coupled with the promise of a brand and the decision was made. There is a special place in hospitality heaven for the polite Front Desk manager in a small property who is the Jack or Jill of all trades. One day they are the polite person taking your reservation over the phone and two days later are the welcoming smile checking you in. Later in the day they are your concierge giving you tips from the local’s point of view. These ambassadors of our trade, our art of hospitality are our unsung heroes. They make us all proud and give us that re-assuring smile that all is well in the American profession of hospitality. 
 
Safe travels!
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Doormen- Endangered species!
 
A friend recently shared a sad story out of Denver. The management of the grand and iconic Brown Palace hotel laid off their doormen and bell staff and outsourced whatever service standards are left to an out of state valet company. The last bastion of luxury will be that only 5 star properties will offer and deliver the level of service we once took for granted.
 
Since they put wheels on luggage even a 4 year old will drag her princess suitcase across the lobby and into the elevator.  Covid didn’t help, hard to assist a guest from a safe six feet. Gone are the days that guests planned to have some tipping cash in one of their pockets. Everyone now expects an Ipad prompt to begrudgingly do the right thing.
 
The following is a posting from my archives and some personal thoughts and my high regard for the Front Services team, the ambassadors of our business.
 
The Doormen
2/24/2015
 
Whenever we drove down Park Lane and passed The Dorchester my grandfather would tell us stories of how the top hatted and tailed doormen were wealthy men in their own right. Like palace guards they were the sentries who controlled the door and the forecourt and choreographed the comings and goings of power, luxe and history. For this they were gratuitously rewarded with cash and gifts and even the occasional hot tip on a horse or a stock. 

In my career I have had the pleasure of working with a number of legendary doormen, gentlemen and one gentlewoman, who were as famous as the properties they manned. 

Tipping in today’s world is always a thing that intimidates many powerful people. Doing the math and the protocols at a dining room table with a cognac in one hand and a gold card in the other is much different than trying to figure out what to give a surly doorman on a crowded sidewalk on a rain driven New York night. The world wants a cab but they are all headed for Queens. The right bill in the doorman’s hand and the crowd is parted and you are safe and dry, ensconced in the back of a  black sedan, on your way, on time, to an expensive Broadway curtain.

When I was a rookie Executive Committee member my family would arrive at the hotel for an MOD weekend and as they got out of the cab Sonny the head doorman would reach into his pocket and give my kids $5 each and tell them they had to be good boys. Years later after he had retired I was once again back in New York and heard that he had passed.  I gathered a number of the staff and we went up to the Bronx to the wake to show our respect.

A great place for any General Manager to stay in touch with the reality of his property is to spend some time each day standing at the door listening to the doorstaff, the employees who are literally on the front lines. They will tell you the real deal of how you are doing. Listen!
 
 

​Master Planning
 
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The Drake
 
My first masterplanning was on the team to totally renovate and re-decorate the Drake Swissotel on Park Avenue. The hotel was vintage 1927. Swissair and Nestle had purchased the property from Loews and wanted it to be the North American flagship of the young airline affiliated hotel brand. 
 
The property was originally a residential pied-a-terre with polite vertical lift of 3 slow small front elevators. Most importantly with the evolving corporate transient comings and goings of a modern hotel we had to add an elevator bank and drive a shaft through 22 floors. Over 500 rooms were renovated, bathrooms were gutted, meeting rooms enhanced, terraces glassed in. Design contests were held. Facades were cleaned. Roofs were re-rubbered. Electric vaults were modernized. On the ground floor we moved out boring retailers, (who were paying rent) for money losing F&B that we thought was brand defining. The irony of this lesson took some time to sink in!
 
After a spend of $80 million, the property settled into a successful  and profitable decade run throwing off strong competitive set Revpar and despite the New York union locals a respectable NOI. Soon however Nestle decided they were in the food business and Swissair needed to focus on flying. Deemed no longer a core sector of the parents we were spun off as a brand and the asset found itself a chattel of a major REIT.
 
Best and highest use!
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Prime lesson of real estate is there is no brand emotion, no architectural legacy. A parcel is a financial instrument and just like water seeks its level, real estate will find its true value. A dozen years after the above renovation the property came to market more from demand than intent. New York real estate values in mid-town were eclipsing any EBITDA that even the most successful hotel could achieve. The bidding was fast and wicked and the property quickly changed hands and was closed on short notice in an attempt to catch the market. The market turned downwards and by the time the property was emptied and demolished it found itself as the world’s most expensive vacant lot.  A quote of the day was “Manhattan has 79 other stalled construction sites but probably none to rival the Drake in location. It is inarguably the best development site in the country and possibly the world,”.  A resilient and persistent NY developer rose from the ashes of that recession of the moment to create 432 Park Avenue an ultra-luxury condominium and the tallest residential tower in the western hemisphere.