Ace Hotel

C

America’s Coolest Hotel is

Coming to East Liberty

The former East Liberty YMCA will be transformed into

the chic Ace Hotel by 2015.

BY PM STAFF

November 18, 2013

PHOTO BY RICK CHUNG

oming soon to East Liberty: a hotel with hand-painted murals, furniture crafted bylocal woodworkers, brass doorknobs salvaged from historic buildings, rooms

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equipped with record players and a bar that serves small-batch coffee and microbrews.

There may be no better bellwether for "it" cities than the Ace Hotel. The meticulouslycurated hipster haven is a favorite of Googlers and touring bands. With just a handful oflocations in seven cities around the world — including New York City, London andPortland — The New York Times has called the Ace “the country’s most original” hotel.

Now, Ace has finalized plans for its eighth location. Not in Paris or Prague. In Pittsburgh.

The former East Liberty YMCA will be transformed into a 63-room Ace Hotel by spring2015. The $23 million conversion will also include a restaurant, ballroom and gym,according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Googlers who often travel to the fast-expandingBakery Square office will no doubt be rejoicing (though East Liberty may soon look like acyborg enclave).

The Ace has a thing for converting historic buildings into spaces that reflect the cultureand history of the city. The original Seattle location was built in a former Salvation Armyhalfway house in 1999 to cater to creatives. The stunning Portland location transformedthe old Clyde Hotel, built in 1912, into a bohemian wonderland.

Those who cringe at the changing shape of East Liberty should be encouraged that it’s theAce coming to town and not another Marriott.

To wit:

“We want guests to wake up in their rooms and feel immediately that they’re in Portlandand couldn’t be anywhere else,” Ace co-founder Alex Calderwood told The New YorkTimes when the Ace Portland opened in 2007.

We can’t wait to see how the Ace integrates elements of East Liberty’s industrial past andPittsburgh’s emerging cultural scene.

Imagine yourself the proprietor of a successful, culturally relevant boutique hotel concept with iterations open

in Portland, Seattle, New York City, Palm Springs, and Los Angeles. Where do you go next?Pittsburgh?

Pittsburgh! Indeed, if you’re the Ace Hotel, you do, or at least you plan to. For the great folks at

Next American City, I’ve got a look at why that hotel organization is eager to open up in this bit of the Rust Belt

— and why, seemingly without exception, Pittsburghers are eager to make their city the sixth spot in the

United States to have an Ace.

An Ace Hotel in (as well as of, by, and for) Pittsburgh

What’s particularly interesting is that the Ace is planned for East Liberty, part of Pittsburgh’s East End, once

home to the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Fricks. East Liberty was once, well, hopping, but it was decimated as the

result of an urban revitalization push in the 1950s and 1960s that attempted to turn the neighborhood into a little

bit of suburbia right there in Pittsburgh. East Liberty is, inarguably, on the upswing once again. And the

possibility is that an Ace in the neighborhood’s charming old YMCA building adds considerable weight to that

momentum. Evidence favoring that idea is what happened to the unexpected slice of New York City where Ace

opened several years ago:

Traditional urban thinking often looks for those “anchors” that, like universities, museums and hospitals, take

up a lot of land and hire a lot of people, and in doing so shape a place. But Ace suggests something different. Ace

hires, no doubt. The Pittsburgh project is expected to offer 100 jobs or so. But really, this is casting a cultural

institution as something of a coral reef. Some things cling to it, making it bigger. But much else passes through it

and circles around it, changing what surrounds it by setting the climate with its presence.

If that seems grandiose, take a look at the block on which the Ace New York sits. “We’ve… got friends in the

building, selling their wares,” reads the little green guidebook that comes in each Ace room. Indeed, they do.

Attached to the hotel in something like a little warren is The Breslin, a dark-wood sort of old-timey eatery that’s

all the rage in New York City, and the John Dory Oyster Bar, both run by noted New York restaurateurs Ken

Friedman and April Bloomfield. Just under Harry Smith’s rope art display is a doorway to Stumptown Coffee,

the sole New York City shop of the coffee roaster that began in Oregon and now has an outpost in Brooklyn.

There’s also a door to Opening Ceremony, an eclectic travel-inspired shop.

More than that, though, there are now stores, bars, shops, start-ups and even another hotel in the Ace’s

immediate shadow, mixed among the wholesale purveyors. Three years later, the whole tone of the crazy little

piece of Manhattan that the Ace chose to enter has shifted. Or, better put: It’s broadened.

That Pittsburgh should join the ranks of America’s coolest cities might seem farfetched until you spend some

time there. But it doesn’t take much time. To be sure, the bet that Pittsburgh is ready for Ace isn’t a huge bet,

since it’s not a huge hotel. With just 65 rooms or so, a significant Google office near by, and a dearth of boutique

hotels in Pittsburgh, the hotel business calculus favors this project. Still, Pittsburgh has much going for it that’s

immediately evident. It’s called the city of bridges for a reason, and I was struck by the natural beauty of the

city’s rivers, cliffs, and hilly streets. Plus, it’s lively. So many U.S. cities today feel empty. But Pittsburgh is

people-sized and full of them. It’s not a city that might immediately you as appealing, but as something of a city

aficionado, I’ve visited a number of them, and you can feel very quickly when a city is right. Pittsburgh feels

right.

Again, these  Next  American  City  pieces are subscription-only, or available for a one-time fee (except, that is, for

"Tech & the City," on New York City’s planned Roosevelt Island tech campus). I’d encourage you to pay but I’m

happy to hook up friends and family.