East Liberty's Ace Hotel, still closed, leaves scheduled weddings in the lurch

Closed since the pandemic started in March, the Ace Hotel in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood has been the subject of complaints to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office over unreturned deposits for scheduled weddings.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office confirmed the office has received complaints but declined further comment.

Y Hotel Group, the owner of Ace Hotel Pittsburgh, did not elaborate.

“I can’t say anything about it,” Nate Cunningham of Y Hotel Group said, citing pending litigation. The Pittsburgh location opened in 2015 in a former YMCA building on Whitfield Street.

A representative from Ace Hotels, which has headquarters in Los Angeles and New York, said the Pittsburgh location “has experienced significant challenges.”

“As hotel managers, Ace Hotel Group relies on the ownership of our properties to fund hotel operations, as they are obligated to do under our contracts,” Ace said in a statement. “Despite several requests from Ace, the property’s ownership group has refused to uphold their contractual obligation to fund the hotel.”

Ace provides branding and day-to-day management of operations, but the hotel’s ownership, assets and liabilities are the responsibility of its local owner, Y Hotel Group, according to the statement from Ace.

Most of the hotel’s other locations have reopened over the course of the pandemic, Ace said. The boutique chain, founded in 1999 in Seattle, has eight other hotels in the U.S., plus three international locations.

Beyond the hotel rooms for visitors, the Pittsburgh location has been a popular gathering place, with an active bar and restaurant, plus ample room for special events and community functions. Its arrival helped to accelerate redevelopment in East Liberty, which in the past decade has attracted new housing, fashionable retailers and restaurants and bars.

No litigation involving Ace Hotel or Y Hotel Group that involves the current closure of the hotel had been filed in the Allegheny County court system as of Monday.

For people like Kristin Hawk and her now-husband Louis Snyder — and at least a dozen other couples — it’s meant they’ve lost out on a wedding venue. They also say they haven’t been refunded thousands of dollars in advance payments for the weddings.

Hawk, 28, a Lower Burrell native who now lives in Crafton, is a member of the Facebook group “Ace Hotel Pittsburgh Wedding Deposits,” where about 50 people are sharing their experiences with Ace and talking about what they can do about it.

Hawk said she has given more than $12,000 to Ace in deposits and payments for the $24,000 reception she planned for Aug. 22.

As the venue remained closed because of the pandemic, Hawk spoke with Ace officials, who referred her to the local ownership. Each side blamed the other for the closure, she said.

Hawk was planning a wedding for 250 guests. She was told in early July that unless they reduced it to 130 people, they would need to reschedule it to August 2021, Hawk said.

They told Ace they would postpone the wedding celebration at the hotel until next year, Hawk said.

On the Aug. 22 wedding date they’d set, Hawk and her husband held a small ceremony and reception at a microbrewery in Slippery Rock.

On Sept. 4, Hawk became aware of legal issues surrounding the hotel and hasn’t heard from anyone there since. She also learned of the Facebook group and other couples’ issues with the venue.

Hawk still wishes to hold a wedding celebration at Ace a year from now, she said, because she likes the venue and wants it to return to business. If the hotel doesn’t reeopen, however, she fears they won’t be able to get back the $12,000 they’ve paid thus far.

“It’s a back-and-forth thing right now,” she said.

Several other couples in the Facebook group have posted stories about their experiences, describing the deposits they are owed.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said that people who have such an experience should file a complaint with the office, either online at attorneygeneral.gov/submit-a-complaint or by phone at 1-800-441-2555.

Although Hawk’s angry at the experience, she’s happy to be married.

“The important thing is the commitment and the marriage and stuff,” she said. “It totally wasn’t the wedding we thought we’d have.”