VAIL — A decade can be a long time in the luxury lodging business. That’s why Vail’s Four Seasons Resort and Residences is getting an extensive upgrade.
Changes include a re-do of Flame restaurant and The Remedy Bar, as well as upgrades to the hotel’s 122 guest rooms and suites, as well as the lobby, corridors and meeting spaces.
The work will take this year and much of 2020. The hotel will remain open during the work.
Perhaps the biggest change is in the residences. Extell Development Company in 2018 received town of Vail approval to change a number of the hotel’s fractional-fee condos to full-ownership units.
Six of the original 19 fractional units will be retained in the fractional pool. The remaining 12 units will be turned into 12 residences, eight new hotel rooms and 18 lock-off units.
Of the new condo units, one was finished in 2018. Only eight are still available for sale. Three of those units are sold “as you see them,” meaning they still have the fittings and furnishings that came with the fractional-fee units. The remaining five will be done with designer renovations.
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Prices range from $4.5 million to $16.9 milion.
Custom touches for owners
Dana Dennis Gumber of Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate is the listing broker for the new units. Gumber said the current fractional units all have the same fittings and furnishings. Buyers of the whole-ownership units will be able to add their own touches.
Owners of the whole-ownership units will also be able to put their units into the Four Seasons’ international rental program.
That’s a lot of outreach to potential renters, Gumber said.
Extell Vice President of Development Kurt Krieg said the sales of the new residences will help finance the rest of the changes at the property.
Those changes are going to be extensive, and, Krieg said, fitting with the Four Seasons brand.
Upgrades to restaurants
AvroKo, a design company with offices in New York, San Francisco, London and Bankok, has worked at Union Station in Denver. That firm will do the work on the Flame and The Remedy Bar restaurants.
At The Remedy Bar, a kitchen will be installed at the bar level. Food currently comes from the Flame kitchen, two floors below the bar.
Renovations at Flame will include a new menu, as well as chefs tables and a closed, private room. Flame will also enclose some current outdoor space.
Krieg said the $40 million project will also include work to the hotels conference and banquet facilities. That work will include new colors and finishes in the meeting rooms.
The idea, Kreig said, is to get the work done with minimal disruptions to guests, employees and the rest of the town. And, he added, the improvements will “meet or exceed” the Four Seasons’ promises to those same groups.
“We’re excited and proud of this project,” Krieg said. “It’s been a well-received project.”
Vail Daily business editor Scott Miller can be reached at smiller@vaildaily.com or 970-748-2930.
Through the years
2003: Groundbreaking at the site of the old Holiday Inn.
2010: Grand opening of the Four Seasons.
2016: Purchased, for $121 million, by Extell Development Company/EX Vail LLC.
2020: Expected completion of renovation work.
Source: Extell Development Company/EX Vail.