Hospitality Style - Summer 2012 - 38

/ / / THE CLIENT

BY MARY SCOVIAK

DESIGN BY THE NUMBERS
Designers seeking work from Northwood’s David McCaslin and Jon Wang need to be as savvy about ROI as FF&E.
David McCaslin, president, Northwood Hospitality, New York Jon Wang, managing director, Northwood Investors, New York

/ / / If hospitality design clients were rated like hotel
assets, David McCaslin, president of Northwood Hospitality, New York, would be on the A list. He has the right projects, like The New York Palace, Houston’s Alden Hotel, Boston’s new Revere Hotel and the newly acquired Cheeca Lodge & Spa in the Florida Keys; the right pipeline, which is flowing along at two to five deals a year; and the right backing from Northwood Investors, LLC, a real estate investment firm with a total fund size of roughly $2.3 billion. Any commission McCaslin approves is likely to have career-building visibility and is certain to get done. So what does it take to get a hearing? “Three

things,” he says. “The design firm has to be customer focused, ROI knowledgeable and creative.” After 37 years in the hospitality industry, mostly on the investment side, McCaslin has zero tolerance for designers who don’t understand that design is an asset management tool, not art for art’s sake. “The designer is there to listen to what we are trying to achieve with our budgets, our timelines and our customer promise,” he says. “Certainly, the designer should bring new thoughts and ideas to the table. But the goal is for the designer to bring the investment to life, not to substitute his or her ideas for ours or to always push for more funding.”

His decision-making process for choosing a design firm works on many of the same principles as his investment strategy. Like his boss, John Z. Kukral, Northwood Investors’ founder and ceo (and one of the key figures in making his former employer, Blackstone, a super-achiever in hotel real estate investment), Northwood Hospitality’s team is known for its deep due diligence and its respect for a proven track record. They look for the same in a design firm. “The best way for a designer to reach us is to have a current project brought to our attention by an investment or hotel professional we know and trust,” says Jon Wang, managing director, Northwood Investors.

Guest room, The Revere Hotel Boston Common, Boston, designed by BBG-BBGM

HOSPITALITYSTYLE.COM / SUMMER 2012

ERIC LEVIN, ELEVIN STUDIOS, BOSTON

Hospitality Style - Summer 2012

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