Mandarin Oriental Could Be Coming to Prominent Existing Buckhead Location

IStar Financial Inc. could announce plans soon to continue the shakeup of its newly acquired Buckhead property, The Mansion on Peachtree Hotel & Residences. According to numerous sources, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts will be leaving the hotel to make way for another ultra-lux hotel brand.

Sources told me the hotel will soon be managed by luxury operator Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The brand caters to a mostly affluent crowd and is well known for very high standards for the properties they manage. This has not been officially confirmed by iStar Financial or the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. That being said, a good number of people have spoken with me already about this, so I would place the validity of this happening as pretty high.

The 42-story Robert A.M. Stern-designed property has 127 hotel rooms, 45 condominiums and also includes the 29 Spa. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio’s Craft Atlanta restaurant was previously located in the building along Peachtree Road, but has since left the project closing its doors on February 14, 2010. Sources told me Craft apparently was being paid a nice sum of money to have the star chef’s name on it’s prime location restaurant space, but couldn’t work out the terms with the new owner.

According to the today’s issue of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the restaurant replacing Craft will most likely be Del Frisco’s, The Texas-based company has numerous locations scattered throughout the country, including Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and New York. They are a high-end steakhouse brand and give each restaurant location a unique look. The article states the lease has not been signed as of yet, but they are pretty close to doing so. What do you think about having another steakhouse restaurant in Atlanta? One thing is for sure, the restaurant space is quite beautiful.

Should be interesting to see what happens!