The July opening of the city's poshest hotel and condominium project, the Mandarin Oriental, could be delayed after a four-alarm fire yesterday caused water and smoke damage to the 14-story Back Bay building.
About a dozen hotel rooms on the fourth and fifth floors, around where the fire started, suffered smoke damage and will have to be repaired, said Robin Brown, a partner with CWB Boylston, which is developing the Mandarin, a blockwide complex on Boylston Street. There was no smoke damage to 50 luxury condominiums, which are located on floors nine through 14, or to the luxury apartments, which are on the opposite side of the building from where the fire occurred.
"There was an almost indistinguishable smell of smoke. The smoke somehow got out of the building," said Brown. "I was pleasantly surprised by the little other damage that I witnessed."
The actual blaze was confined to three rooms that make up a fitness center on the fourth floor, the Boston Fire Department said. There was also water damage in an empty retail arcade below the fitness center, said Brown, who toured the building after the fire. He and the developer's builder, Suffolk Construction, each indicated the fire may cause a modest delay to the Mandarin's opening.
Fire Department spokesman Stephen MacDonald said arson was ruled out. While the official cause has not been determined, cigarette butts were found in an impromptu smoking area used by construction workers near the source of the fire, where cabinets were being fashioned for installation and marble tiles were being stored, he said.
Some 350 construction workers were inside the construction site when the fire broke out at 7:45 a.m. yesterday but were able to evacuate immediately; two firefighters were treated for minor injuries. MacDonald said the fire caused an estimated $2 million in damage.
When the fire was discovered, construction workers at the scene said colleagues shouted warnings up the open elevator shaft and others called each other on cellphones. They rushed downstairs in what was described as a generally orderly evacuation.
The fire did its heaviest damage not to the Boylston Street side - where firefighters smashed about a dozen windows as they fought the fire - but in the rear, where the fitness rooms overlook a central garden. Flames shot out of the fitness center windows.
Frank Jevoli said he and others immediately noticed heavy smoke as they stepped off the elevator onto the fourth floor yesterday morning. A foreman with the Laborers Union, Local 22, Jevoli said he promptly alerted co-workers to evacuate.
"You couldn't see nothing" through the smoke, he said.
Brown said the damage was limited due to sheer luck: Much of the water from fire hoses spraying into the building fell down an elevator shaft and smoke went up stairwells and shafts that were open on the roof because the building is under construction. He also credited a rapid response from firefighters for checking the damage.
The fire comes less than four months before the scheduled opening of the $250 million luxury condominium and hotel complex, which will be operated by the Mandarin Oriental Group Inc., a five-star hotel chain with a worldwide reputation that turns on perfection. The project, adjacent to Prudential Center, includes 150 hotel rooms, 25 rental apartments, and 50 condominiums, all of which have already sold for $2 million to $12 million. The complex will also include fine restaurants such as Boston's renowned L'Espalier, which is relocating to Mandarin, and a charcuterie and boulangerie at Sel de La Terre.
Mandarin Oriental offers top-drawer services and amenities ranging from dog walking and concierge service to delivering rib eye steaks, prepped for grilling, to rooftop patios.
Some of the Mandarin's condo owners who were out of town called their brokers to find out the extent of the damage to their multimillion-dollar condos.
Geoffrey Gibbons, a broker for Coldwell Banker on Newbury Street, said two concerned owners called to see what he knew about the damage. The fire and potential delay "is a setback no matter how you look at it," he said.
Another condo buyer, former FleetBoston Financial Group chief executive Charles Gifford, said he was assured by CWB partners Stephen Weiner and Brown there was "not a problem" with his condo.
"I've already moved on," Gifford said from his home in Ocean Reef in the Florida Keys.
Brown was crestfallen when he learned of the fire as he was driving up to the building to go to work. But, he added, "I've been in the hotel business 35 years. We'll deal with it."
Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.
