| NEW YORK, Nov. 8, 1999 - -- Millennium Partners announced today
that it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Ian Schrager Hotels
to re-develop The St. Moritz Hotel into a mixed-use building and The Ritz-Carlton
Hotel Company, L.L.C. has signed an agreement to manage the hotel component.
The St. Moritz Hotel, whose historic facade overlooks Central Park,
will undergo a complete exterior renovation. The existing 689-room hotel
will be totally refurbished and reconfigured as The Ritz-Carlton flagship
300-room hotel in New York City, with extraordinarily large rooms and suites.
To be named The Ritz-Carlton, New York, it will provide full hotel services
to the 14 condominium residences that will occupy 80,000 square feet of
space in the top 12 floors of the building.
Christopher M. Jeffries, principal and founding partner of Millennium
Partners, stated, �The conversion of The St. Moritz to a five-star caliber
hotel and limited collection of grand residences, ranging in size from
5,000 to 10,000 square feet, will offer a level of luxury and service at
a scale never before available in such a prime Central Park South location.
Now, following our announcement to purchase The Ritz-Carlton, Boston, we
will continue The Ritz-Carlton tradition of restoring historic properties
to their former
elegance.�
Horst Schulze, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Ritz-Carlton
Hotel Company added, �This hotel will become the new flagship property
for The Ritz-Carlton. New York City is the world�s most dynamic hotel market,
Millennium Partners is already under construction at The Ritz-Carlton,
Downtown New York, and now we have the most prized site on Central Park
South. This will reestablish us as the preeminent luxury hotel operators
in New York and finally offer travelers more five-star caliber lodging
options.�
The St. Moritz property and the Downtown, New York development signify
two of six partnerships between Millennium Partners and The Ritz-Carlton
Hotel Company and are components of a $800 million Ritz-Carlton development
program. The companies are currently involved in two projects in Boston,
where Millennium Partners recently announced that they had signed a contract
to purchase The Ritz-Carlton, Boston, and develop a new hotel, The Ritz-Carlton,
Boston Common. The other two hotels are under construction in Washington,
D.C. and Georgetown.
Millennium Partners is currently developing nearly $3 billion of mixed-use
real estate in Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Miami and New York.
Headquartered in New York City, Millennium Partners has assembled some
of the world�s leading hoteliers, retailers, sports and entertainment companies,
and financial institutions to create intelligent, large-scale urban developments
that respond to a resurgent demand for dynamic city living. Millennium
Partners has attracted prominent institutions and individuals as financial
partners, including Goldman Sachs� Whitehall Fund; financier George Soros
and his Quantum Realty Fund Limited; Citicorp
Real Estate, Inc. and a consortium of German financial institutions
led by ERGO Versicherungsgruppe AG.
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