Apr. 8, 2003 - The developers of a new ultraluxury hotel on Boylston Street to be operated by the international Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group say they're building at the Prudential Center whether the Hynes Convention Center stays open or not. 

The principals of CWB Boylston LLC, preparing for yesterday's announcement at the Hynes, said Boston's older convention center would be needed in the long run despite the current economic slump and the huge Boston Convention and Exhibition Center opening in South Boston in 2004. 

But the clientele of the 168-room Mandarin Oriental Boston at the Prudential Center will be high-end business and leisure travelers, not conventioneers. 

"Regardless of what happens with the Hynes, the customer coming to our hotel is going to take advantage of the rest of what Boston has," said Stephen R. Weiner, one of three equity partners in the $200 million mixed-use project. 

Robin Brown, former general manager of the Four Seasons and partner in the venture with veteran developers Weiner and Julian Cohen listed some of Boston's amenities: "Neiman Marcus, Saks, the hospitals, the universities, the corporations." 

Moving from near unanimous rejection three years ago to near unanimous approval by the Prudential Project Advisory Committee, the project now includes the hotel, 40 luxury condominiums, 48 apartments, and retail space. 

Neighboring groups making up the advisory committee preferred more residential units, and the developers accommodated them. 

"This is another day we should brag about in Boston," said Mayor Thomas Menino. "Thank you for your confidence in Boston," he told Wolfgang K. Hultner, chief executive of Mandarin Oriental for the Americas. 

Mandarin Oriental is opening a hotel in New York in the fall and a hotel in Washington, D.C., next year. 

Construction in Boston is expected to begin in late summer, with a hotel opening planned for early 2006. "This fits nicely in one of our key gateway cities," said Hultner. 

The hotel-condo-apartment-retail complex will stretch 580 feet along Boylston Street, connecting Lord & Taylor to the Prudential arcade through an enclosed walkway. A 200-by-280-foot park will fill the space behind the hotel. 

The 13-story, two-building complex is designed to restore activity to the south side of a street that for decades has been a gaping roadway. 

"It's meant to be conceptionally a landmark," said Alfred Wojciechowski, a principal at the architectural firm CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc. Wojciechowski said the new hotel's facade would be limestone or another mined product, not just "something that has a beige color to it." 

Luxury and guest service are emphasized at the 18 Mandarin Oriental hotels worldwide. Boston's will have a 15,000-square-foot spa featuring some combination of saunas and hydrotherapy baths. 

"We feel very strongly about spas," said Hultner. Mandarin Oriental recently appointed a vice president in charge of its hotel spas worldwide. 

" `Delighting our guests' is our mission statement," said Hultner, who lives in San Francisco and has been with Mandarin Oriental for 27 years. 

He said the Boston hotel will have local flavor but, like all others in the group, hints of Asian cultures. 

"We don't build cookie-cutter hotels," Hultner said. 

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group International Ltd. has ownership interests in most of its hotels but will not in Boston. It is providing temporary financing and will be the operator. Boston is the second city in which the company has developed residences along with a hotel. A website, www.mandarinresidences.com, went online yesterday. 

Although it is too early to know room rates or condo or apartment prices, rooms at the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco start at about $500 a night. Ten percent of the apartments in the Boylston Street complex will be in the "affordable" range. 

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