San Francisco Business Times
04/11/18

New Owner of Iconic Nob Hill Hotel Proposes Adding Rooms, Amenity Space
By Katie Burke

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/04/11/intercontinental-igh-mark-hopkins-nob-hill-sf.html
One of San Francisco’s largest hotels wants to make major changes with plans to add rooms and amenities.

The new owners of the InterContinental Mark Hopkins have proposed demolishing a portion of the 383-room property that’s now used as office space to make room for new guest suites and indoor wellness facilities.

If approved, the office annex fronting Pine Street would be replaced as part of plans to “update the hotel as a first-class destination atop Nob Hill,” according to a preliminary proposal filed with the city.

The proposal for 999 California St. was filed about a year after the property traded hands for nearly $206 million. Hong Kong-based investor Leadwell Global Properties bought the hotel early last year from affiliates of Woodridge Capital Partners. Woodridge paid $120 million for the hotel in early 2014.

Rooms at the hotel now range from $259 to $459 per night, according to San Francisco Business Times research.

Along with additional rooms, the overhaul would include a new roof terrace next to the hotel’s ballroom, piggybacking off the increasing popularity of rooftop venues and bars. Plans detail adding between 15 and 20 new rooms that would space 20,250 square feet.

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s Kai Broms, the site’s project manager, declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the ownership declined to comment.

Many other hotel operators are also investing in properties across the city, prompted by a wave of new competition: a slew of hotels are under construction or recently completed after years with little new inventory.

Last year, California set a record by opening more than 10,790 hotel rooms, according to a recent Atlas Hospitality Group report. That broke a record previously set in 2008. In the Bay Area, that included the delivery of 290 rooms between the debuts of both the Hotel Via and Proper Hotel. This year, another 670 rooms among four hotels are expected to open, with the largest to come from the 230-room Hyatt Place under construction at 701 Third St.

There are also more projects in the works: Atlas reports that San Francisco has 38 hotels with 5,930 rooms in the planning phase, a 46 percent increase over 2016. Of those proposed projects, about 2,945 rooms are slated for the SoMa area.

The increased competition has triggered a series of significant remodels, in particular at hotels located around Union Square and Nob Hill.

The Westin St. Francis, for example, recently completed a $45 million renovation — the largest revamp since it was built in 1904. The Stanford Court Hotel’s $16 million renovation started last year as part of a strategy to pull tech-savvy travelers up to Nob Hill.