Atlas in the news

The San Diego Union-Tribune 02/05/19 Hotel Sales Might Be Down, but This Carlsbad Sale Just Broke a Record for Southern California By Lori Weisberg https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/tourism/sd-fi-sandiego-largest-hotel-sale-20190205-story.html California hotel sales declined sharply last year, but San Diego still earned bragging rights as having the most expensive sale in Southern California. The $170 million sale last November of the Park Hyatt Aviara catapulted the county into first place for the highest individual hotel transaction, but the $575 million sale of the 681-room Park Central in San Francisco was No.1 in California, according to a year-end report prepared by the Atlas Hospitality Group. The sale of the upscale Carlsbad resort, which also included a golf course, had been taken over by its lender following a years-long struggle by previous owners to repay debt that was coming due. Statewide, the total number of individual transactions last year — 280 — represented a more than 24 percent drop compared to 2017. It was also the third lowest volume of sales over the last decade, Atlas reported. Similarly, the total dollar volume — $5.6 billion — also fell, posting a decline of nearly 10 percent. Still, in a sign that hotel values may be rising for at…

Bisnow 02/03/19 The Hotel Industry Has Mixed Feelings About Opportunity Zones By Joseph Pimentel https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/hotel/alis-conference-the-hotel-industry-has-mixed-feelings-about-opportunity-zones-97297 When it comes to the new opportunity zone program that gives investors a hefty tax incentive in return for investing in designated opportunity zones that are in mostly low-income areas, many hotel executives are still leery of the federal program and how to take advantage of it. You can’t place a hotel in an area with little infrastructure, no job growth or main commercial drivers, Lifeafar Investments Chief Financial Officer Cole Shepard said. LifeAfar recently purchased Plaza Colón Hotel & Suites in San Juan Puerto Rico. This part of Puerto Rico is a designated opportunity zone. “These [designated] opportunity zones are usually in the third-tier areas,” Shepard said. “If someone wanted to build a hotel there, they would have already done it.” One year since it was passed under President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, the opportunity zone program has generated a lot of excitement, optimism and cautiousness. But as the commercial real estate industry waits on the federal government to release the second round of guidelines, hotel executives and hospitality experts aren’t quite sure what to make of the program…

The Registry 01/31/19 KT Urban’s Plan for Downtown San Jose Hotel Grows to 330 Rooms By Meghan Hall https://news.theregistrysf.com/kt-urbans-plan-for-downtown-san-jose-hotel-grows-to-330-rooms Cupertino, Calif.-based KT Urban’s original plans for its proposed luxury hotel at 8 North Almaden Blvd. have gotten an update, according to City of San Jose planning documents. The hotel, called Almaden Corner, was originally proposed in the spring of 2018 and was slated to include 220 rooms. While the building’s height will remain the same at 225 feet, planning documents indicate that the room count has now been upped to 330, and the project’s 77 parking spots would be completely eliminated. The 0.39-acre project site is currently a private parking lot, which would be removed prior to construction. Guest rooms would be located on floors three through 18, while a restaurant and bar are proposed for both the ground and 19th floors. The second floor would be reserved for guest amenities and hotel administration. Parking for patrons would be provided off-site via a valet located on Almaden Boulevard. According to Atlas Hospitality Group’s 2018 Year-End California Hotel Sales Survey, while the number of hotel transactions in Santa Clara County decreased sharply from 12 to four between 2017 and 2018, other…

Orange County Business Journal 01/28/19 OC Hotel Property Sales Down 30% By Katie Murar https://www.ocbj.com/news/2019/jan/28/oc-hotel-property-sales-down-30/   The number of hotels sold last year in Orange County declined 30% to 16 with a cumulative value of $343 million, according to a report by Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine. The average sale price dipped 3% to $21.4 million and the average price-per-room was flat at $196,000, the report said. The priciest, and biggest, of the 16 sold was the 408-room Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, which traded hands for $95 million. The 41-room Laguna Riviera Beach Resort sold for the highest price per room, $512,195. Statewide hotel sales fell 24% to 280 compared with 369, the third lowest volume of sales over the past decade. Dollar volume declined 10% to $5.6 billion, while the average sales price rose 17% to $20 million. The median sales price per room of $121,439 is a new record for California hotels and a 14% jump over 2017 and up 77% over the last five years alone, Atlas said.

The Real Deal 01/28/19 Amid Decline, LA Still Leads CA in Hotel Development: Report By Natalie Hoberman https://therealdeal.com/la/2019/01/28/amid-decline-la-still-leads-ca-in-hotel-development-report   Los Angeles County is leading the state in hotel development by a landslide. A new report from Atlas Hospitality Group revealed there are 6,727 rooms under construction in the county, double the amount in Santa Clara County up north, which ranked second. More hotel rooms also opened in L.A. County last year than anywhere else in California. In 2018, 11 new hotels with a combined 1,526 rooms opened. San Diego followed with 1,224 rooms. Overall, there are 203 hotels with 29,114 rooms under construction in the state. There were 52 new hotels with 6,592 rooms that opened in 2018. Yet, despite ranking first in many categories, L.A. is showing signs of a slowdown in its hotel construction boom. The number of hotel rooms dropped 65 percent from 4,309 rooms in 2017 to 1,526 rooms in 2018, according to the report. Hotel transactions also dropped 4 percent year over year to 48 trades, while total-dollar volume decreased 14 percent to $1.4 billion in 2018. Still, hotels are increasingly expensive in the area — the county’s median price per room increased nearly 18…

The Registry 01/25/19 Hotel Planned for Downtown Redwood City Heads to Environmental Review By Meghan Hall https://news.theregistrysf.com/112-key-hotel-planned-for-downtown-redwood-city-heads-to-environmental-review Redwood City’s 17-room Garden Motel, located at 1690 Broadway near Peninsula city’s downtown core is slated to be replaced by a new, 112-key Holiday Inn Express & Suites. After owning the property for nearly forty years, the Patel Family has decided to redevelop the site to better accommodate guests and bring their business into the modern era. “The intention was always there since day one, but the stars aligned,” explained Viren Patel, the project applicant and contact for his family’s business, San Mateo, Calif.-based RWC Hospitality, LP. “The economy for hotels is at its highest, and the land value has skyrocketed.” California — and the San Francisco Bay Area — hotel market has been heating up in recent years. 2017 saw a record-high number of deliveries and openings, with 66 hotels opening throughout the state in 2017, and another 52 in 2018, according to Atlas Hospitality Group’s California Hotel Development 2018 Year-End Survey. Across San Mateo County, 28 hotels and 3,540 rooms were in planning at the end of the year, an 11 percent increase over the year before. Four hotels, totaling 718…

CoStar 01/24/19 SeaWorld Favors Roller Coasters Over Hotels to Boost Attendance By Lou Hirsh https://product.costar.com/home/news/shared/1589481510 For SeaWorld, adding marine-themed roller coasters is a higher priority than building on-site hotels to lure visitors to its parks across the country. New and upcoming coasters are helping SeaWorld rebound from deep visitor and revenue declines after the 2013 documentary “Blackfish” showed the harm on whales in captivity at the chain. At the same time, the company moves away from adding on-site hotels as part of its recovery formula after the recent cancellation of one at its San Diego location. Following last year’s opening of its attendance-boosting Electric Eel roller coaster, SeaWorld San Diego this May plans to open Tidal Twister, billed as a “dueling coaster” taking riders on a twisting, banking ride at 30 miles an hour with zero-gravity rolls. In 2020, it plans to debut the shark-themed Mako coaster, described as the “tallest, fastest and longest dive coaster in California” and the state’s only floorless dive coaster, in which riders will dangle as the coaster climbs to 153 feet. The coaster comes as Orlando, Florida-based SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., once famous for its orca mascot Shamu, abandoned a proposed hotel project on the…

HotelNewsNow 01/25/19 California Hotel Sales Could Drop Over Bid-ask Gap As the price per key hit a record in 2018 California hotel sales, the number of individual sales dropped year over year, perhaps showing a widening gap in buyer and seller expectations. By Bryan Wroten http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/articles/292456/California-hotel-sales-could-drop-over-bid-ask-gap REPORT FROM THE U.S.—In a possible indication of what’s to come, hotel transactions in the state set a new record last year in price per room, while the number of individual sales dropped significantly. It’s a tale of two sets of numbers, said Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, author of the California Hotel Sales Survey Year-end 2018. Last year’s transactions set a new price-per-key record of more than $121,000, he said, a 14% increase over 2017 and a 77% increase over the past five years. However, the number of individual sales dropped 24% year over year in 2018, falling from 369 in 2017 to 280 in 2018. It’s the second-largest percentage decline in sales since 2008 to 2009, at the beginning of the meltdown, he said. Reay said the decline could be an indicator of declining actual sales in California, and buyer and seller expectations falling out of alignment. The number of…

Bloomberg 01/22/19 Sunset Strip Scrubs Its Seedy Rock Past with $450 Million Hotel By Patrick Clark https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/sunset-strip-scrubs-its-seedy-rock-past-with-450-million-hotel For decades, the Sunset Strip was known for its rock clubs and celebrity hot spots. Now, the once-gritty stretch of boulevard is becoming better known for its luxury hotels. Real estate developers AECOM Capital and Combined Properties Inc. provided a fresh glimpse of the future of the section of Sunset Boulevard that runs through West Hollywood, California, by unveiling new details of a $450 million hotel-and-condo project they’re building where the House of Blues once stood. Called the Pendry West Hollywood, the project has 149 guest rooms, 40 branded residences and a small music venue that nods to the property’s history. “People in finance and tech and real estate, the traditional businesses that stay with us and stay at luxury hotels, we think we’ll pull them to West Hollywood,” said Michael Fuerstman, who co-founded operator Pendry Hotels with his father, Alan. “We think it’s a big opportunity.” He isn’t the only one. The Pendry is slated to open next year, when it will join a crowd of newly built or freshly renovated hotels along Sunset Boulevard. They include the conversion of an existing…

HotelNewsNow 01/18/19 California Development Could Taper Amid Rising Costs The number of new hotels opening in California is expected to remain steady for the next few years, but increasing costs in construction and labor, among other challenges, will likely lead to an eventual slowdown, according to a survey. By Bryan Wroten http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/292370/California-development-could-taper-amid-rising-costs   REPORT FROM THE U.S.—The number of new hotel openings in 2018 in California was down compared to the record-high openings in 2017, but should rebound in 2019 and potentially 2020, a survey by Atlas Hospitality Group shows. The 2018 California Hotel Development Survey by Atlas Hospitality Group reports 52 hotels opened in California last year, down 21% from 66 in 2017. The number of new rooms opened also decreased, falling 39% from 10,793 in 2017 to 6,592 in 2018. The slowdown in openings in 2018 was expected, and is in no way an indicator that people are pulling back from developing in California, said Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group. Looking at projects under development in the state now indicates 2019 and 2020 would be closer in pace to 2017, he said. There are currently 203 hotels with 29,114 rooms under construction, a 37% increase in…

The Orange County Register 01/15/19 Does Orange County Need 80 More Hotels? By Jonathan Lansner https://www.ocregister.com/2019/01/15/does-orange-county-need-80-more-hotels/ Orange County’s lodging industry has plans to add 80 more hotels after nine opened the past two years. The annual hotel construction report from Atlas Hospitality shows three hotels opened in 2018 in Orange County, half of the six in 2017. Last year’s openings had 445 rooms vs. 960 in ’17 — a drop of 54 percent. That decline seems to be a fast-growth industry taking a breather than any actual slowdown. Hotels under construction at year-end were 14 hotels vs. eight in ’17 — a gain of 75 percent. That lodging will hold 3,128 rooms vs. 1,657 a year earlier — a rise of 89 percent. Orange County developers are in planning stages for an additional 66 hotels vs. 57 a year earlier — a rise of 16 percent. That lodging will hold 10,344 rooms vs. 11,184 a year earlier — a fall of 8 percent. PS: Orange County represented 6 percent of hotels opened statewide last year vs. 9 percent in ’17 and 6 percent of lodging being built or planned. PPS: The average number of rooms per hotels recently built, under…

The Press-Enterprise 01/15/19 Does Riverside County Need 89 More Hotels? By Jonathan Lansner https://www.pe.com/2019/01/15/does-riverside-county-need-89-more-hotels/ Riverside County’s lodging industry has plans to add 89 more hotels after nine opened the past two years. The annual hotel construction report from Atlas Hospitality shows 3 hotels opened in 2018 in Riverside County, half of the six in 2017. Last year’s openings had 447 rooms vs. 1,236 in ’17 — a drop of 64 percent. That decline seems to be a fast-growth industry taking a breather than any actual slowdown. The short run looks cool: 14 hotels were under construction at year-end vs. 13 in ’17. That lodging will hold 1,746 rooms vs. 1,909 a year earlier — a fall of 9 percent. But Riverside County’s developers are in planning stages for an additional 75 hotels vs. 53 a year earlier — a rise of 42 percent. That lodging will hold 11,837 rooms vs. 9,422 a year earlier — a rise of 26 percent. PS: Riverside County represented 6 percent of hotels opened statewide last year vs. 9 percent in ’17 and 7 percent of lodging being built or planned. PPS: The average number of rooms per hotels recently built, under construction or planned…