The Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown Manhattan is poised to finally reopen in early November — ending a shutdown that began with the pandemic and stretched more than four years because of an epic contract dispute, The Post has learned.
As first reported by The Post, the iconic luxury lodge on East 57th Street has stayed shuttered as the property’s owner Ty Warner — the reclusive, tight-fisted billionaire who founded the Beanie Babies empire — has tangled over fees with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the management company that operates the swanky chain.
This summer, Four Seasons had been eyeing a September grand reopening for the 52-story, Art Deco-style tower designed by IM Pei — once known as the city’s priciest hotel. After a handful of last-minute delays, the relaunch is now slated for the start of New York City’s holiday tourist season, two sources with direct knowledge of the plans told The Post.
The hotel’s website, which on Tuesday said the venue “remains temporarily closed and is expected to reopen in fall 2024,” is slated to begin taking reservations later this month, according to the sources.
If Four Seasons hits its November target, it will end a series of false starts, including in the spring of 2022 and in 2023 as Warner and the Four Seasons were locked in a standoff over fees as the city’s hotels languished in a post-pandemic funk.
This year, however, Manhattan’s hotel sector is enjoying a boom following the city’s clampdown in 2023 on Airbnb, which has drastically reduced lodging options. Room rates are up by 7.4% in New York City over the past year, compared with a 2.1% increase nationally, according to CoStar.
That’s good news for Warner, who scooped up the building in 1999 for $275 million — a sharp discount to the $475 million that was spent building the 368-room tower in 1993.
Signs of fresh life have lately surfaced at the property located on a block thick with luxury towers known as Billionaire’s Row. On Tuesday, workers were busy reconditioning the tall, glass doors at the entryway, which in recent weeks got flanked with a pair of potted magnolias.
The hotel’s long-darkened lobby, with its soaring ceilings and marble staircase, was once again visible from the street, lit up by massive chandeliers. Swing-era jazz wafted onto the street, along with a piped-in autumnal fragrance laced with hints of cedarwood and tobacco.
Plain brown paper that had blocked the hotel’s retail windows for years has been replaced with glossy photos promoting soon-to-open bars, restaurants and event spaces. A poster at the entrance on East 58th Street advertises a spa by L’Raphael, a Switzerland-based beauty chain.
The website says the “new spa” will open in 2025.
As first reported by The Post, Four Seasons next year also will begin offering apartments to rent after it finishes converting about 50 rooms into rental units. The apartments are still under construction, sources said.
It’s not clear whether the new rental units will include the notorious Ty Warner Penthouse — a 4,300-square foot spread on the 52nd floor with panoramic views of the city which had been advertised as high as $50,000 a night.
“The fact that they are going with rentals versus condos is probably because Ty Warner doesn’t want to sell ownership rights in the building,” said one hotel industry expert who did not want to be identified. “He likes having control.”
Reps for the Toronto-based Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts company said “the hotel will be accepting reservations soon and we will begin welcoming guests later this year,” but did not address the rental units.
Warner declined to comment through a spokesperson.
The hotel is now hiring bartenders, front desk agents, security guards, servers and a director of catering, according to its LinkedIn page.
Among the five-star hotels in New York that closed during the pandemic, the Four Seasons alone has remain shuttered. Competitors including the St. Regis, The Peninsula, and the Lotte New York Palace had all reopened by the end of 2021.
The Four Seasons’ last guests were medical workers who came to the Big Apple at the height of the pandemic in April and were given free lodging by Warner until July 2020.
But it was the contract dispute between Warner and the Four Seasons that kept the property dark for the next three years, with Warner contending that the property was not profitable enough, in part, because of its labor costs, industry experts told The Post.
In 2021, the New York Hotel and Gaming Trades Council union, which represents the workers secured $10 million in severance for 100 of its members who took a buyout.
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