Gostelow Report, September 2007

A month after opening the 77-key Hazelton Hotel in its hometown Toronto, Hazelton Hotels International is talking about other plans.

By Mary Gostelow, Contributing Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 9/1/2007

A month after opening the 77-key Hazelton Hotel in its hometown Toronto, Hazelton Hotels International is talking about other plans. Led by developers Peter Cohen and Bruce Greenberg, the company is looking at Calgary and Vancouver, and, in the United States, Boston and Chicago. Greenberg, who is also majority owner of the Soho Metropolitan Hotel, Toronto, and his partner are looking for projects that would allow about 100 rooms. Some, but not all, will be called Hazelton.

CPH Hotel Management A/S, Copenhagen, is run by CEO and co-owner Allan Agerholm. CPH will this month announce the flag of its first project, a franchised new-build, with strong conference facilities, between Copenhagen airport and the city center. Agerholm, who was formerly GM of the Hilton Copenhagen, says he is actively seeking new projects.

In Libya, the Green Mountain conservation project, east of Benghazi, will include three hotels, according to leading businessman Hassan Tanaki, who is planning to invest up to US$1 billion in the next two years. The Green Mountain project is sponsored by UNESCO. London-based architects Norman Foster + Partners have been brought into the partnership and Self al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of the ruler, is supporting the concept.

Banking, football and utilities entrepreneur Rinat Akhmetov, based in Kiev, is determined to make Ukraine the next must-visit luxury destination. He already owns two hotels in Ukraine, the Donbass Palace in Donetsk and the Opera in Kiev. He also has owns eight resorts in Turkey. Is he now about to launch a boutique group?

Which brands will be lucky enough to get the two luxury hotels that are going to be included in Singapore’s forthcoming South Beach development? Led by the city-state’s most forward-thinking international hospitality developer, Dr. Kwek Leng Beng of City Developments Ltd. and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, the nine-acre (3.6-ha) site adjacent to the iconic Raffles will consist of two towers, one 45 floors and the other 42 floors, and other buildings. These will encompass what, until recently, was the Non-Commissioned Officers’ club, a heritage site that could potentially be adapted to retail. Kwek’s partners are Elad Group Singapore Private Ltd., and Istithmar from Dubai. Elad is an offshoot of Yitzhak Tshuva’s Tel Aviv-based company that is best known in the United States for its redevelopment of The Plaza, New York City. The Singapore project was won for US$1.1 million and will cost a further US$1.7 million; the architect is the increasingly popular Foster + Partners.

Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd., Tokyo, has bought 33.2% of the historic Imperial Hotel, Tokyo. Mitsui Fudosan also owns the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Tokyo, which is the highlight of the splendid new US$3.2 billion Tokyo Midtown mixed-used development replacing the former Self Defense Agency (Japan’s equivalent of the Pentagon). Now, says Takashi Yamamoto, executive manager planning group, Mitsui Fudosan is working in Sapporo’s northern island of Hokkaido on a 32-floor project that will include a hotel. There is another project in Kobe, but neither hotel has yet been allocated.

Ernesto A’de Lima, Tokyo-based COO Japan for Archon Hospitality, a Goldman Sachs company, says the country’s northern island of Hokkaido is particularly suitable for leisure development. It has the potential, with its outstanding skiing, of being another Whistler. The best flaky snow in Hokkaido, apparently, is at Niseko, which many say is fast becoming Asia’s top winter and summer playground.