Changing of the guard at the Chelsea Hotel

Stanley Bard, the managing partner of the Chelsea Hotel, has been pushed off the building’s board of directors. Bard, whose family is one of the famous property’s three principal owners, has been in charge of day-to-day operations for 50 years. There is speculation among tenants that Bard’s ouster is a precursor to the Chelsea Hotel’s other owners pushing to convert the building into either a boutique hotel or a luxury condo. That speculation may be well founded, because the management company replacing Bard at the Chelsea Hotel is Ira Drukier Associates. Drukier partnered with Robert De Niro to develop the Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca and has been involved with high-profile projects such as the conversion of the Covenant House into the Maritime Hotel and Richard Meier’s Perry Street towers. more [Living With Legends via Daily Intel]