Manufacturing cool: The birth of Toronto’s newest, hippest hotel
May 21, 2010
Tony Wong
As a child, Jason Pomeranc would visit his cousins in Toronto during the summer.
“I remember visions of a lake,†says the 39-year-old New Yorker. “I remember how friendly Canadians were and that I always wanted to come back.â€
This summer the celebrity hotelier doesn’t have a reason to leave: He will have a home away from home in the city, with his first hotel outside the United States, The Thompson Toronto opening in mid-June on Wellington St. W. near Bathurst St.
“Toronto is a natural choice because it has a real synergy with New York and as a financial centre, and it also has a synergy with Los Angeles and Hollywood because of the film festival. This is where our core customers are,†Pomeranc said in an interview with the Star.
You may not have heard of the Thompson chain, but it’s considered the hottest boutique hotel brand in North America. The lodgings are a favorite with Hollywood glitterati, where Pomeranc has become inn-keeper to the stars.
According to some hotel blogs, young Toronto socialites are already worried about who will get VIP access to his hotel’s signature rooftop pool bar.
Pomeranc has been busy keeping the papparazi from TMZ away from his other locations.
Pomeranc’s New York flagship 60 Thompson is the preferred choice of Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. His Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is considered the go-to spot in Los Angeles.
And Pomeranc’s Toronto connections have cut both ways: The developer hired Toronto superstar chef Susur Lee to open a restaurant in his Thompson Lower East Side restaurant, as well as a second restaurant in his Washington hotel.
In New York, Lee moved to a bigger stage with his Shang restaurant, where Madonna attended the opening party. Rapper Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige were spotted earlier this year having dinner as they downed the city’s finest Chinese food perfected, perhaps a little ironically, in Toronto.
But can Pomeranc work his magic here?
Atom Egoyan’s movie Chloe makes Toronto the Good to be the next sin city. But getting the luxe crowd into hotel bars and rooms will be more difficult since the hotelier is in for some stiff competition when he makes his debut. Simply put, the luxury hotel market in Toronto is getting crowded. A new Four Seasons, Shangri-La, Trump Tower and Ritz Carlton are all in various stages of completion.
Analysts say the unprecedented spree of luxury rooms will have a negative impact on room rates in a sector already suffering from a weak global economy.
But Pomeranc is undeterred. “It’s a strange time in the industry, the economy is in flux and it’s certainly had an impact on rates.â€
At New York’s 60 Thompson, the company’s first hotel and the main revenue driver for the brand, the average room per night would have cost more than $600 U.S. Today, it’s more like $450, says Pomeranc. The Toronto Thompson hotel is expected to have average room rates of just over $300.
“There has definitely been a turnaround in people using expense accounts and in global luxury trends in general,†says Pomeranc. “But we’ve been hit less badly than most.â€
Pomeranc has been there before. He first opened 60 Thompson, along with his brothers Michael and Larry who are his partners in the company, on September 10, 2001. The next day terrorists launched an attack on New York. The hotel was vacant for almost two months.
Since then it has recovered to become an institution in the Big Apple. And Pomeranc managed to brand his magic on other Thompson properties, including the Hollywood Roosevelt, where Prince once played acoustic solos in the hotel bar.
In the process, Pomeranc has become a part of the glitterati. And like celebrity hoteliers such as Ian Schrager and Andre Balazs, Pomeranc has lived a life not unlike his guests, having his share of starlet girlfriends, including formerly Beverly Hills 90210 bad girl Shannen Doherty.
The two may have been made for each other. In his publicity stills, Pomeranc’s sullen stare comes across as more bad-ass nightclub owner than the lawyer and real estate developer he happens to be. But in an interview he is reflective, even a touch self-deprecating.
“When we first set out to build a hotel we had no idea it would become a brand. We had no grand master plan, but we believed that there was a need for an independent hotel that could cater to a certain clientele ,†said Pomeranc.
The Star got a sneak preview at the new hotel.
This week construction workers were putting the finishing touches on art work with the installation of Spanish artist Javier Mariscal’s dramatic mural of the Toronto skyline on the lobby wall.
“This is a bit of the South Beach vibe in Toronto,†said Tony Cohen, who along with developer Peter Freed are partners in the project with Pomeranc. “We really think it will bring a sense of fun and energy to the area.â€
The birth of the boutique hotel movement is widely credited to Ian Schrager, the former owner of New York’s famed Studio 54. After being released from jail for tax evasion, he set out to create a series of hotels in the 1980s mostly designed by French visionary Phillipe Starck.
“Ian was the pioneer. He created the opportunity for people like me to go forward,†said Pomeranc. “He gave the concept of the independent hotel legitimacy.â€
Pomeranc believes there are only two really significant trends in the hotel business: the move by Conrad Hilton to standardize hotels so customers knew what to expect, and Schrager’s movement to individualize them.
“Schrager broke down that concept. Real luxury is individuality. The me generation evolved into wanting something different, not the same as their parents.â€
In addition to the hotel, Pomeranc has grander plans for his adopted city, including launching a condominium project developed by partner Freed. Thompson Residences, a 310-unit condominium in downtown Toronto’s King St. W., is the company’s first large-scale foray into residential development.
There is a little irony of course, that Pomeranc, New York’s king of cool, decided to develop residences in Toronto before New York.
The residential market in this city is certainly healthier than in his back yard. But the jury is still out on whether Pomeranc is coming too late to the condo party, where everybody has filled up on the cheap booze of debt. Toronto not only has a lot of hotel development, but it already has 36,000 condos under construction and analysts see the market cooling dramatically later this year.
“Toronto is a city of neighborhoods, just like New York. Some areas will do well and still retain value,†says Pomeranc. “I think the Thompson properties will be a game changer for the neighborhood.â€
It helps that Freed has been at the forefront of developing the area into a hip destination. And the gravitation of the film festival southward from Bloor St. will also help, says Pomeranc.
How well Thompson’s brand translates into a Toronto setting remains to be seen. The signature Thompson architectural detail is the rooftop pool bar, an essential element in creating what he calls an “urban resort.†Both the residences and the hotel will feature a pool.
After being reminded that Toronto winters aren’t conducive to sunbathing, Pomeranc laughs.
“New York was actually colder than Toronto this year, so it’s not all that different,†he says. “And I think Canadians really relish th sunshine more so it will be well used. And there’s nothing wrong either with watching the snow fall over Toronto while sitting outside. That’s part of the Thompson appeal.â€
