Boston - Success Stories

Mandarin Oriental Hotel - Boston

"HVS got it. We conceived a distinct product and they understood it for what it could and would be, even when it was just an idea. Their imagination and intimate market knowledge was crucial in allowing us to advance our project, communicate with the financial markets, and create something truly distinct."

Robin Brown,
Partner,
CWB Boylston LLC

Robin Brown is a force of nature. He made it easy for us to believe. Long established in Boston as the general manager of the Four Seasons, Mr. Brown has made the transition into real estate development with the Mandarin Oriental. Conceived at the beginning of the decade by a partnership that also includes two Boston real estate royals, Stephen Weiner and the late Julian Cohen, the hotel is slated for completion in July 2008. Located at the Prudential Center in Boston’s Back Bay, the hotel will offer 148 rooms, a restaurant and lounge, a full-service spa with eight treatment rooms, and ±12,000 square feet of meeting space. Along with featuring a new standard in luxury lodging in Boston, the Mandarin Oriental’s design was painstakingly engineered by Mr. Brown himself so as to maximize both guest satisfaction and operating efficiency.

The project also includes 50 ultra-luxury condominiums, each one unique, each one designed by Stephen Weiner; the units sold out in short order without any advertising other than word-of-mouth, setting new records in terms of unit prices in the process. (The average price was $1,500 per square foot against a previous high of about $800 per square foot.) Mr. Weiner also steered the project through the capital markets and collaborated with Mr. Brown on the design of the ±30,000 square feet of retail space, which will include renowned restaurant and Boston original L’Espalier among its tenants. The project will also include 35 luxury apartments.

HVS’s involvement with the project began in 2002, just after conception, when a feasibility and market study was commissioned. Originally brought into the project via an established relationship with Mandarin Oriental development officials, HVS has continued to provide consulting and valuation services for CWB Boylston throughout the property’s gestation period, a tenure that spanned the local lodging market’s dark days of 2003 continuing through a recovery that remains underway through year-end 2007. We remain deeply impressed by the energy and vision of this developer, and humbled to have had the opportunity to participate in a project that seems destined to be one of the highest-profile successes in the Boston hotel market’s history.

Signature Fan of Mandarin Oriental, Boston