On Patrons
September 25th, 2019
I am writing from the lobby of the newly-renovated TWA hotel at JFK airport. In what already feels like the most cliché-ridden note yet, let me start by saying this: they really don’t build ‘em like this anymore.
The costs of this renovation are well documented. No detail was missed. The elevator from the terminal has two stops: “Present Day JetBlue” and “1960s TWA Hotel”. Fly Me To The Moon plays in the background. The bellmen are dressed like ground crew, the staff like pilots and flight attendants.
There is a bar in an old 40’s Constellation aircraft outside. The immaculately restored oval flight board that once showed arrivals from West Berlin and departures to far Bombay now clicks away every few minutes with changing welcomes, the ultimate instagrammable moment in the social media age. This place is nothing if not on brand.
They’ve got a restaurant from Jean-Georges, four bars, three event facilities, two coffee shops (one from Intelligensia, obv), a rooftop pool, a bookstore, a gift shop, a gym, a TWA museum, and a Shinola outpost.
They’ve even got a “food hall”.
Ceci n’est pas une food hall
Over the course of the afternoon, more and more guests have arrived. The sunken lounge is starting to fill. Everyone is taking pictures, many with real cameras. Drinks are flowing. There are business meetings. People are shopping. This entire experience raises a hundred questions, but two stand out. The first:
Who was this built for? Aviation geeks? Architectural buffs? Business travelers? They even rent rooms in four-hour blocks. . . and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
At Revel we start every project we work on –either as a principal or consultant – with the same critical question. A question that needs to be thoroughly understood, and too often isn’t:
Who is the patron?
There are a hundred knock-on questions that flow from this: Why are they coming? How do they get here? How often will they come? What are we offering that no one else is? How much time do we think they’ll spend here? But that first question remains: who is the patron?
It’s like Where’s Waldo, but for patrons
The second question is a bit more existential: What, exactly, is this place? Is it a museum? Business hotel? Luxury resort? F+B destination? Overnight rooms are $199, four-hour “day stays” are $119. Cocktails start at $16. I didn’t get a price on the design-porn coffee table books or the leather attaches.
The project has had plenty of haters, skeptics, mixed reviews, and puzzled looks. It also gets a lot of buzz, a ton of press, lots of events and a seemingly steady crowd. If this were located in Manhattan there would be a line around the block.
Patrons come, they linger, they drink, they eat, they shop, they instagram (we did), they leave (or not). It wasn’t the greatest experience of all time. The Rat Pack Muzak was a bit much after a while. The staff was kind-of-helpful. The drinks were good, the snacks were not. We’re kicking ourselves for not buying that Eero Saarinin book.
But it was an experience. This place isn’t a hotel: it’s a lifestyle center masquerading as a resort. They’re running their retail like hospitality. You can learn a lot about how to create and operate an experience-driven project by spending a day here.
Where we’ve been: We’ve just returned from the fall ULI conference. The mood was upbeat but uncertain. We saw presentations on a lot of great development projects of every size and stripe, ones that even ten years ago would have been hard to imagine.
Investors have billions of dollars to deploy, but aren’t sure where to place their bets: we heard from several that their appetite for new retail was “zero.” No one we spoke to thought that real estate fundamentals were off, but that there were simply too many other variables — from Amazon to tariffs — to be certain about much. As one speaker put it: “Whatever happens, this time its not CRE’s fault.”
Food Trend Alert
We’ve written about Thai and even Filipino food. But if your social media feed is anything like ours, the cuisine you can’t escape is Georgian (as in the country, not the home state of Revel World HQ).
From Bill Addison to Saveur, folks are talking about it. Think Indian meets Persian meets Greek, plus fantastic natural wines. Khachapuri— basically cheese naan with an egg— is, officially, everywhere. But who doesn’t like cheesy egg bread?
What We’re Reading:
The Contender a new blog from one of our favorite people: bon vivant and erstwhile fishing companion David Coggins.
The Contender covers travel, hotels, cocktails, fishing, fashion, art, and advice (this is very on-brand for us). David is a fine writer with a keen eye. The Contender is definitely worth putting into your weekly feed.
What We’re Listening To
Getz/Gilberto has been in heavy rotation in our house for years (my older daughter says “it’s great to do homework to”) but even more so now that co-artist Joao Gilberto died this summer.
This album brought bossa nova to the world in 1964 (two years after the TWA terminal originally opened…). You know “Girl From Ipanema”, but you owe it to yourself to give the rest of this album a listen. It remains as relevant as ever.
Drop us a line and let us know what’s keeping you busy, and if we can help you discover who your patrons really are (and what it is they really want).
Cheers,
G