Tech & Tonic

3 Responses to “The W is Closing Downtown”

1. 

   Melanie M.
   

   10. Jun, 2009

   I’m not sure what you thought you were reading, but to quote the story, that you linked to: “the hotel will continue to be operated by Starwood Hotels and is expecting a number of sold-out nights during the summer.” The W is not closing. At worst it will be be run by the bank.
2. 

   Ian Grist
   

   10. Jun, 2009

   We’ll see what happens. I’m sure they want to be as optimistic as possible, but I highly doubt they are going to see any sold out nights this year. I’m predicting we’ll see a complete change in ownership and branding before the year is out…

   But I could be speculating about as accurately as the people who bought the hotel – time will tell! haha

   Thanks for your comment Melanie – how did you find my site btw?
3. 

   PJAM3
   

   17. Jun, 2009

   It’s like a house that becomes bank owned. Banks want to sell and recoup the money, they don’t want to hang on and run a business or own a home. The longer the bank owns this building the more it means nobody is willing to buy it. Which is a bad thing not a good one.

   Most of these ‘high end’ places will fall by the wayside as our economy changes. There still will be various luxurious resorts all over the place but they won’t be popping up every other block anymore. The money isn’t there and a lot of people aren’t going to be throwing away money as loosely as they once did. A few grand here and a few grand there is one thing, but these kind of places depend on a few million here and a few million there. That kind of waste isn’t going to be rampant anymore.

   Look at NY and the new Yankee stadium. They had to cut prices on luxury boxes because people weren’t paying 3-5K on seats. Most of those seats were bought by Wall street, hedge funds, and other NY companies for clients and for employees. It was all about showing off and as anybody that goes to many sporting events on the east coast know, these days it’s a bunch of fake fans in suits who populate the stadiums while the real fans are stuck in the nose bleed section once in a while. But with lay offs, lost of revenue, and new regulations, we aren’t going to see spending like that for a long time. At least not on a grand scale.

   It’s a new world where other countries are competing for the same dollars, jobs, tourists, etc. Wall Street is looked at as one big scam and big ticket gifts are going to be more ridiculed and watched. People don’t seem to realize we are in a transition. Things aren’t just going to magically turn around and be all better. There is a reason why we’re in this mess and it’s not just because of the housing or bank crisis over the past few years. The Auto industry was bailed out in the late 70’s and early 80’s. There were the junk bond markets, the 90’s recession, the dot com bust and so on. We’ve been a country who lived on borrowing and credit and ‘make believe’ for years. A few band aids here and a stitch there and everybody assumed everything was fine. You can’t place a band aid on a cut that requires 100 stitches. Eventually the blood is going to come out. And places like the W and Ivy and so on have always been nothing but overpriced over-hyped and in many cases, filled with ‘holier than thou’ attitudes.
   Many of these places are going to have to change or face the fact they aren’t going to be around.