April 04–The Warwick Hotel has given up its Radisson Blu branding, as the nearly century-old Center City stalwart seeks to forge a high-end identity in line with its Rittenhouse Square environs.
Owner Chartres Lodging Group instigated the change, effective April 1, to play up the historically resonant Warwick name while assuring that guests don't mistake the property for a "value-brand" Radisson, senior vice president Matthew Cox said.
The move suggests that Radisson's parent, Minneapolis-based Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, is having little success differentiating its high-end brands, like the Blu hotels, from its original offerings.
"There's a potential for guests not to fully appreciate the difference between the value brand and the upper-upscale brand when they are making their reservations," Cox said.
Radisson began branding some of its high-end hotels in big U.S. travel markets with the "Blu" moniker — previously used only abroad — in 2011, when it debuted the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in a Chicago skyscraper.
But guests may not appreciate the distinction, said Andrew Benioff, a hotel specialist at the Llenrock Group, a Philadelphia real estate finance firm.
"What you know is 'Radisson,' and when you think of that brand, that brand has an OK reputation, not a spectacular reputation," Benioff said.
The main Radisson brand ranked second from the bottom in its category last year in a customer-satisfaction survey by market researcher J.D. Power & Associates, edging out Four Points by Sheraton but behind Aloft. Sheraton and Aloft are owned by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.
"The brand was sort of dragging that hotel down," Benioff said of what is now known as the Warwick Rittenhouse Square.
Carlson Rezidor spokesman Ben Gardeen said Radisson is "an established and trusted brand around the globe." He said that his company continues to enjoy a partnership with San Francisco-based Chartres, which owns the Radisson Blu Minneapolis Downtown hotel.
Gardeen said of the Warwick: "Ultimately, Chartres felt that approach was best for their asset in that particular market."
Chartres paid a break-up fee when it dropped the branding, Cox said.
Completed in 1928, the brick-and-limestone Warwick, at 1701 Locust St., was long among the city's go-to lodgings for visiting businessmen, politicians and entertainers, according to its successful nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The hotel was later acquired by one of the companies that would merge into Carlson Rezidor, which dubbed it the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel in 2001. The 20-story building's top eight floors were converted to 100 residential units in the mid-2000s.
Chartres acquired the remaining 301-room hotel property in 2014, just as it was completing a $20 million redesign that coincided with its rebranding to the Radisson Blu Warwick Hotel, Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia.
Two years later, Chartres seems to have concluded that the relationship wasn't working, said Peter Tyson, a managing director at CBRE Hotels in Philadelphia.
"The primary reason for changing management and/or a brand is because the owner is not happy with the performance," Tyson said. "That's frankly the only reason why they'd do it."
Cox said the Warwick will be operated by Kokua Hospitality, with which Chartres shares some management, using existing staff.
It is looking into the possibility of partnering with a so-called soft brand, which would allow it to maintain its independent operations and identity while tapping into a bigger company's reservation system and loyalty program. The Logan Hotel on Benjamin Franklin Parkway has such an arrangement with Hilton Worldwide's Curio Collection soft brand.
For now, Chartres is depending on the Warwick name — and the upgrade it underwent under its previous branding — to draw guests, Cox said.
"All the changes and offerings have already been made, but the name was all wrong," he said. "The name change is the capstone of all we've been trying to do."
215-854-2615 @jacobadelman
