Ian Schrager has finally gone Public with his plans for revitalizing Chicago’s iconic Ambassador East Hotel.

Schrager intends to make the 285-key Ambassador East the flagship and debut of a new hotel brand called Public, which he describes as “accessible luxury” with an emphasis on service. The Public concept borrows from the luxury, boutique and limited-service segments to create a brand that is simultaneously aspirational and affordable. The new brand will debut this fall. Calling himself in a press release “anti-design,” “anti-flash,” “suspicious of the ‘wow factor’” and “completely sick of slick,” Schrager wants Public to appeal to both upscale bargain hunters and traditional budget consumers looking to trade up. “This is a huge opportunity to create a new genre of hotel that is not pigeonholed into a specific and traditional business classification,” Schrager says. In today’s press release, which is purportedly written by Schrager himself, he says that Public “may well represent the revitalization of the hotel concept itself and another worldwide wakeup call for the entire industry.” The man often called “the father of boutique hotels” says the rapid worldwide expansion of boutiques has trivialized the concept. The Public brand seeks to reconnect with the boutique movement’s roots while making it accessible to a new class of consumers. “The idea behind the boutique, as I saw it, was meant to touch people emotionally and viscerally and offer guests a truly unique experience,” Schrager says. “The idea has been lost with the huge number of watered-down versions. I want to bring it back in an updated version and elevate it to a cultural experience for the modern day traveler. These travelers now expect truly unique experiences, and not merely a place to sleep.  Public will punctuate this with great value and service as well. “My hotels were never about design. They were about an attitude, an approach and an experience. It’s something the industry never understood,” he says.

Service excellent, not superfluous Excellent service will be a cornerstone of the Public experience, but the brand will not deal with “superfluous” services. For Schrager, this marks a new approach devoid of excess and a rejection of old-fashioned definitions of luxury. “Luxury is no longer about spending the most money; it is about getting the best value and being made to feel special,” Schrager says. “This is not in response to difficult economic times; it is a true paradigm shift.” Public’s design team is being headed by Schrager’s longtime partner, Anda Andrei. The brand’s design will be restrained, refined and classically cool, devoid of pretense and hipness. “It’s a new simplicity. A ‘new chic.’ A ‘sincere chic.’ Tasteful and understated without attitude where quality and comfort are paramount. It is a really personal, authentic, confident style, and authenticity can’t be faked. Genuine, understated good taste is a universal language, yet hard to find,” Schrager says. “There is no pretense here, just effortless, timeless, purist design providing a relaxed vibe and familiar atmosphere that feels like home. We are trying not to be hip—we are, in fact, anti-hip— and therefore, by definition, we are.” For Ambassador East Chicago—henceforth known as Public Chicago—Schrager has maintained the existing structure and architectural details and infused the interior with modern aspects to evoke a warm, personal style. The interior design features a smart mix of modern pieces in unexpected combinations. Public Chicago’s Living Room and Library will be nicknamed “chat rooms,” juxtaposing comfortable, intimate seating areas with communal work tables and computer stations. Reminiscent of 1950s coffeehouses, The Library will house a coffee bar during the day, and by night transforms into a sexy lounge and bar offering plated exotic food by Chef Jean-George Vongerichten. Off of The Library is a candlelit Backroom that doubles as a screening room and hosts comfortable lounges and intimate seating for enjoying private screenings, video installations, poetry readings, original performances, relaxing and entertaining. The hotel’s famed Pump Room is undergoing a complete renovation and will be helmed by Vongerichten. The restaurant will offer reasonably priced, delicious favorites in a relaxed, comfortable environment. Vongerichten will support local purveyors, regional flavors and offer a “farm to table” experience, as well as a daily special chef’s tasting menu of the most unique creations.  At night, the restaurant’s bar will be transformed into a supper club recapturing the glamour of the 1930s and ’40s with a modern twist.  Offerings will include light tapas style food including Asian specialties, exotic cocktails and great music.

Legendary hotelier Ian Schrager is set to launch a pair of new hotel chains, acting as an owner-operator, a departure from his history of managing properties for others.

Together known as Schrager Hotels, the two new hotel brands include a luxury lifestyle brand and another that is “incredibly stylish, less expensive and reasonably priced for both large major city center 1000-plus-room hotels and smaller hotels,” he says. Both brands will focus on offering guests good value for money.

The luxury brand will charge rates slightly below the competitive set in a given market, delivering a modernized, unpretentious version of classic luxury. The other brand will consist of less-expensive, stylized large hotels in city centers.

The first hotel in Schrager’s latest venture will be Chicago’s historic Ambassador East Hotel, which he acquired last year and which is undergoing a US$25 million renovation. It is unclear which branding style he will stamp on the property.

Schrager plans to lean on existing financial partnerships, including Morgan Stanley, to help finance further building acquisitions and hotel conversions, he tells The Wall Street Journal. He says deals are in the works in New York City and London, and he is also scouting Los Angeles and Miami. Additionally, Schrager is targeting international gateway cities including Paris, Barcelona, Istanbul, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and other cities in Europe, Asia, China, India and South America.

The announcement comes in conjunction with the sale of Schrager’s interests in Gramercy Park Hotel, closed last thursday. “It was a very good financial transaction for me,” Schrager says of the sale. “I received an offer that was just too good to refuse. However, it is a bittersweet moment as well. I put 110% into that hotel, as I do with all of my projects, but it was time to move on and seek new challenges.”

By Barbara De Lollis, USA TODAY

Boutique-hotel pioneer Ian Schrager’s getting back into the hotel business – and I’m not talking about his high-profile Edition venture  with hotel heavyweight Marriott International.

The man credited with inventing the hip hotel some 25 years ago is quietly working on creating a not-yet-named private label company, he told me recently.

“I want to build another company again,” he said, referring to his first one, which became the publicly traded luxury hotel collection, Morgans Hotel Group.

I had the chance to sit down with Schrager for about an hour in his surprisingly unpretentious – and fairly cluttered – office in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood. (Believe me, his diggs don’t reflect the glamorous, minimalist design that Schrager hotels are noted for! See photo below.)

From his ground-floor offices, where tables and even floors are piled high with sketches, photos, books and blueprints, Schrager talked about his first effort in Chicago – the dated Ambassador East Hotel, which is getting a stylish overhaul.

Schrager also revealed that that he’s examining “a whole bunch” of other locations including London, New York, Florida (Miami, I’d guess) and even Las Vegas.

“When I got into the business, I wasn’t interested in creating brands. I said, let’s have fun,” he told me. “I really enjoy creating environments that people come in and respond to. It was never even motivated by money; that came as a consequence.”

Now, Schrager says, he wants to get back in the game in a bigger way, especially since he’s seen his boutique-hotel concept mimicked widely in the last five years.

His goal? Roll out “a couple of new brands” that he has not yet named – “a high-end brand and a low-end brand, and sometimes in the middle.”

Expect to pay roughly $225 a night at his Chicago hotel

Schrager purchased the Ambassador East hotel on April 1. (We’ll have to wait for the opening; at the time, he told the Chicago Tribune that planning would take around nine months and construction another year.)

He has high hopes for what he can do with the iconic hotel, which opened in 1926.

“In Chicago, the Ambassador East will be an incredibly special hotel,” he told me.

“That’s one of those hotels who had seen its best days in the past,” he said. “It was the perfect opportunity for me to bring value by creating a real idea and electricity, and do something unique there.”

Obtaining hotel construction financing doesn’t appear to be a major obstacle – for this hotel, anyway. Schrager says he’s financing the Ambassador East with a mix of his own money and that of Morgan Stanley.

The hotel’s rates will be high, but not sky-high.

When the Ambassador East hotel does open in 2012, Schrager says he expects rates to average about $225 per night.

It’s a nod to the recession, he told me.

“It’s a good value, which I think is what’s necessary today,” he said.

Like Edition hotels, his private-label hotels will include Internet access in the rates. Charging for Internet, he said, would be “short-sighted.”

How would this compare to an Edition hotel, if hypothetically, one were to open in the same city? In the case the Ambassador East hotel, it would be the cheaper of the two, he said.

Still, don’t expect Schrager’s private company to blossom overnight.

Schrager will specifically seek properties like the Ambassador East that are “a little downtrodden and haven’t functioned well for a long time,” he told me. And since the hotel market remains stymied by economic conditions and most owners are unwilling to sell properties that they consider to be undervalued at this time, Schrager – like other investors with money – are seeing few properties being put up for sale.

Any conflict with creating the Marriott Edition hotel chain?

I wondered if Schrager’s private efforts would put him in conflict with his work on the Edition chain, which this month opened its first hotel in Waikiki.

“No,” he told me. “Edition will be in a certain space, and my space either above that or below that…I wouldn’t do anything competitive with Marriott. I want them and myself to be successful.”

Ian Schrager officially acquired on April 1st, 2010 the historic landmark Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, located in the heart of the exclusive Gold Coast. This coveted location is the city’s most desirable retail, dining, entertainment and residential neighborhood.

Mr. Schrager, who has owned and operated multiple hotels, comprising thousands of rooms, in gateway cities such as New York, London, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco, has always wanted to own a hotel in Chicago.  ”I have always considered Chicago one of the most beautiful and architecturally significant cities in America-the city that Mies van der Rohe, one of the best architects in history, called home.  It also doesn’t hurt that my wife and her family are from Chicago too!” says Schrager.

The 285-room and 189,000 square foot hotel, built in 1926 located at 1301 Northstate Parkway at Goethe Street, and world famous, acclaimed restaurant, The Pump Room, will undergo a renovation in the following months.  Schrager intends to return them both to their past glory.  ”It will still be the Ambassador East…but better,” says Schrager.  In its hay-day, the esteemed hotel served as the wedding location of Humphrey Bogart to Lauren Bacall and played host to world renowned celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, John F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood and Robert Redford, to name a few.  Frank Sinatra was known to have booked an entire floor of rooms when in town, as well as, clear out the Pump Room for private entertaining with his famed Rat Pack buddies.  The Pump Room is also famous for introducing the Bloody Mary with the celery stalk to the world!

“I respect and love this hotel, its history, the city, the Gold Coast location and the neighborhood. I cannot think of a better city, time or location to launch one of the 2 new hotel brands that I am creating,” says Schrager.

There is no doubt that Schrager will continue the Ambassador East’s successful legacy and may even create a few new legends of his own.

Ian Schrager Company (ISC) builds, develops and markets innovative lifestyle residences and hotels, introducing new concepts and reinventing industry standards. ISC was founded in 2005 by visionary Ian Schrager following a formative career revolutionizing and impacting nightlife (Studio 54 and Palladium) and hospitality (Morgans, Royalton, Paramount, Hudson, Mondrian, Delano, Shore Club, Clift, St. Martin‘s Lane and Sanderson). ISC’s recent projects include the transformation of the fabled Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, 50 Gramercy Park North, and 40 Bond, among others.