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Scheduled for completion in 2021, the $550-million Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport will include over 100,000 square feet of meeting and event space and 1,055 guest rooms in a pair of 21-story towers.
Robin Brown
Principal, Spot On Ventures
Industry experience: 48 years
Robin Brown can tell whether a hotel is well-run almost as soon as he walks in the door. The former general manager of Boston’s Four Seasons is putting his life’s experience in the hotel industry to work as an investor and advisor in some of Boston’s most distinctive new hospitality concepts, ranging from the music-themed Verb hotel in the Fenway to the art-infused Studio Allston Hotel. Brown also helped develop the Mandarin Oriental Boston hotel, and teamed up with Highgate Holdings and Rockpoint Group on the acquisition and repositioning of the Boston Park Plaza.
After partnering with Samuels & Assoc. on the Verb Hotel in the Fenway and The Davis Cos. on renovations to the Hilton Boston-Woburn hotel, Brown’s Spot On Ventures is a part of New Boston Hospitality Group’s team in the city’s biggest hotel development: the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport. Scheduled for completion in 2021, the $550-million Summer Street hotel will include over 100,000 square feet of meeting and event space and 1,055 guest rooms in a pair of 21-story towers.
Q: How satisfied are you with the performance of the Verb Hotel?
A: Steve Samuels and I are ecstatic. We’re humbled, frankly, by the success. We ran the kind of numbers I’ve not seen in my career. We exceeded 96 percent occupancy for the year. In order to do that, you basically have to sell out almost every single night. I’m especially proud of the team at the Verb, because they worked passionately about being cool and hip and fun and extremely casual. They were able to pull off the rock-and-roll theme and then execute with precision, and to be ranked No. 8 on TripAdvisor in Boston.
Robin Brown
Q: Did TripAdvisor and other review sites’ influence play into the decision to go with independent formats at the Verb and Studio Allston?
A: I was a brand-only guy with the Mandarin and the Four Seasons, and then I became a full-on independent guy, and now with the Omni I’m back in the brand game. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the culture of the leadership team and the respect that ownership has for the leadership team, and the ability of ownership to select, hire and retain a management team of individuals, particularly at the GM level. It all filters from the GM. Customers respond to the integrity of the service. It’s one thing to put out a brand and misdeliver on the expectations. When you establish an independent brand, that gets to what I call the Instagram moment: how does that relate? My punchline in the industry for all of the 40-plus years is: does the hotel tell a story? If you don’t have a story to tell, you don’t have much.
Q: What’s Spot On Ventures’ role at the Omni Seaport and what’s important about running a convention center hotel?
A: We are an investor in New Boston Hospitality, and they are 50 percent owner of the Omni and also the developer. The other half of the investment is Omni. I’m extremely active alongside The Davis Cos. I had grown up in the Westin hotel chain and some of the larger Westin hotels in Canada. They had 400-plus rooms and big conference facilities. That’s not convention [format], but it’s larger than the Four Seasons. I think we’re going to be the most exciting convention center hotel in the U.S., for sure. It relates to a key couple of areas. The guest room experience will be one, but the amount of meeting space we’re going to have and its multifunctionality, that defines the experience. The ballroom is going to be the largest in the city at 25,000 square feet, and a second at 17,000 square feet, and a multitude of other function rooms. The best part is all of the pre-function space: it’s all glass and it flows beautifully. You’ve been to events in hotels where the pre-function space is cluttered with low ceilings and no natural life. Where the hotel is situated, and how we were able to stage all of the back of the house on a subfloor, we were able to produce a theatrical performance level on all of the function levels. It’s like a stage. We’re very fortunate in how the architect laid out the function space, which will drive an enormous amount of business.
Q: What made the Hilton Boston-Woburn Hotel a good opportunity for its recent repositioning?
A: It was brought to Davis Cos. and Spot On Ventures by the former CEO of Morgans Hotel Group, Mark Gordon from Rubicon Cos. and we looked at a couple of other hotels with him. He brought the opportunity. I don’t know that we would have looked at it. It was Jon Davis’ first hotel, and it wanted a lot of love and attention to be blunt. It’s a fantastic location, located 10 miles outside the city at Interstate 93 and Route 128, with 20,000 square feet of function space. Again, it lacked love and it didn’t have a story to tell. So we loved it a lot and we’ve given it a story and an identity, and we transformed the meeting space and the lobby – which was very unappealing – into a vibrant, active restaurant lounge-bar concept with Matadora.
Q: When you’re on the road, how can you tell if the property where you’re staying is well-run?
A: My number–one criteria when I’m there is the friendliness radar. I love to see staff that anticipate you, walking toward you. Nothing drives me more crazy than any service individual with their head down and the lack of warmth. Someone told me once, even if you have a master’s [in hospitality] from Cornell, if you don’t love the human race, don’t work in that sector. I look for people who love the human race, and that’s a rare find. I monitor that all the time. And speed is important. Everything today has to be fast: coffee, your check-in, check-out, delivery, luggage. Luxury equals speed. My personal bugaboo is lightbulbs and in particular, grout. I go bonkers if the grout is not perfect, and in a lot of hotels it’s not perfect.
Q: What’s your next project?
A: We’re looking at a little reconfiguration for the Verb next year. We just opened a new room called The Groove: it’s a 1970s lounge in the front where you come in and can play vinyl records. Other than that, my Spot On real estate interests have offers on two existing properties inside Route 128 right now. They’re both available, but sometimes you have to chase 30 or 40 to get one.
Brown’s Five Favorite Activities:
- British comedy
- Strong cup of PG Tips tea
- Being on the water on the Cape with family
- Montreal Grand Prix car racing
- Cooking & entertaining with family
