Atlas in the news

HotelNewsNow 07/25/18 5 Things to Know: California Hotel Development Up at Midpoint of 2018 http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/287480/5-things-to-know-25-July-2018 California hotel development up at midpoint of 2018: Atlas Hospitality Group has announced the results of the company’s midyear development survey for California hotels, noting the number of hotels under construction increased 41% year over year to 183, and the amount of new rooms under construction has increased 42% to 25,872. The highest concentration of construction seems to be in Los Angeles Country with 37 hotels and 5,631 rooms in the works, the largest of which is the 288-room Courtyard by Marriott in Monterey Park.

The San Diego Union-Tribune 07/25/18 San Diego County Doubles Hotel Rooms Under Construction — 3,400 By Lori Weisberg http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/tourism/sd-fi-hotel-building-boom-20180725-story.html Coming off an already record-setting 2017, hotel development throughout California so far this year shows no signs of slowing, even as construction costs continue to climb. There are currently 183 hotels accounting for nearly 26,000 rooms under construction up and down the state — a more than 40 percent increase over the first half of 2017, reports the Atlas Hospitality Group in its semi-annual survey of hotel development…

Orange County Business Journal 07/23/18 OC Hotel Development Steady; More to Come By Paul Hughes http://www.ocbj.com/news/2018/jul/23/oc-hotels-steady-more-come/   Three new Orange County hotels with 445 rooms opened in the first half of 2018, according to data from Irvine hotel broker-consultant Atlas Hospitality Group. The three were • Hampton Inn & Suites in Irvine, with 164 rooms • Waterfront Hilton Beach Resort’s second tower in Huntington Beach, with 151 rooms • Lido House in Newport Beach, part of Marriott’s boutique Autograph Collection, with 130 rooms OC has nine hotels with about 2,400 rooms under construction; the largest is Westin Anaheim Resort by Anaheim-based Wincome Group, a 613-room project next door to Anaheim Convention Center. The county has 63 hotels with about 10,750 rooms in planning—up 26% and 3%, respectively. A dozen additional hotels in planning with about the same number of rooms suggest smaller hotels on the drawing boards. The select service niche, typically a smaller product, has been popular and land is less available for larger projects in OC. Demolishing an older hotel—as Wincome did for WAR—can allow a larger footprint and the Anaheim hotel market has been hot for several years. Atlas says this is also true statewide. “2017 was…

CoStar 07/13/18 Potential Hotel Wage Hike in Anaheim, Calif., Leads Disney to Mull Other Development Options By Lou Hirsh http://www.costar.com/News/Article/Potential-Hotel-Wage-Hike-in-Anaheim-Calif-Leads-Disney-to-Mull-Other-Development-Options/202747 Hotel operators including Disneyland are not in a happy place with a ballot measure in the California city of Anaheim that could raise workers’ minimum hourly wages at some properties from $11 to $18 by 2022, a proposal that is already slowing development plans. Some analysts say passage could send hotel developers looking outside the city for future projects — in places like neighboring Garden Grove in Orange County — as the popular resort owned by The Walt Disney Co. attempts to boost its visitor counts even higher with an upcoming Star Wars attraction opening in 2019. Wincome Group, based in Anaheim, already has put on hold a four-diamond luxury hotel, entitled for 700 rooms on Harbor Boulevard across the street from Disneyland, until it knows the outcome of the “living wage” measure recently placed on the November ballot by the Anaheim City Council. Wincome Group has begun construction on its $250 million Westin Anaheim Resort, located near the city’s convention center, which is in the resort district and would be affected by the ballot measure. The proposal applies specifically…

The Registry 06/25/18 A Welcome Sign for the Bay Area Hotel Industry in 2018 A robust 2017 for Bay Area hotels could bring continued expansion in 2018, say two industry reports By Michele Chandler http://news.theregistrysf.com/a-welcome-sign-for-the-bay-area-hotel-industry-in-2018 Hotel development is going strong in California, with the industry setting a new record for hotel room openings in 2017. Early indications are that 2018 is shaping up to be another breakout year, even as potential economic clouds gather on the horizon, according to two newly-released industry reports. The Atlas Hospitality Overview and Outlook report, released in the first half of 2018, found that a total of 10,793 rooms came online in California during the year, surpassing the previous high of 10,286 rooms achieved in 2008. In total, the state saw 66 hotels open, with a combined 10,793 rooms. Atlas’ 2017 Year-End California Hotel Sales Survey, released Feb. 8, reported that California’s hotels attained a new statewide record on median price per room of $106,496, while individual hotel sales rose 14.6 percent over 2016. In Northern California, 21 hotels opened last year, Atlas found, up from 13 in 2016. Those hotels represented 2,726 rooms, up from 1,399 rooms the prior year. The report said that…

CoStar 06/01/18 New Hotels Headed to the Sunset Strip By Karen Jordan https://product.costar.com/home/news/shared/191665   Driving down the Sunset Strip these days, it’s impossible to miss the cranes and other signs of construction happening. Much of the action revolves around hotels. There are no fewer than five projects underway along this famous patch of boulevard between Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Bob Sonnenblick, chairman of Sonnenblick Development LLC, said it boils down to practicality. “The reason so many hotels are being built on the Sunset Strip is because there is simply no other place on the entire West side where there is high rise-approved land,” he said. “All of Santa Monica and Beverly Hills are now down-zoned to a three-story maximum height. Where else can you find a commercially-zoned piece of land to build a high-rise hotel? It just doesn’t exist anymore today.” That combined with the “amazing city-lights views,” Sonnenblick predicts there will be continued new development on the Sunset Strip. The mile-and-a-half long Sunset Strip is also “an iconic location around the world,” according to Matthew May, president of May Realty Advisors. “Sunset has amenities. Sunset has views. Sunset has a history. Sunset has branding.” The large number of businesses,…

Los Angeles Times 06/02/18 Hoteliers Are Building Mostly Upscale Projects to Meet Travel Demand By Hugo Martin http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-hotel-construction-20180602-story.html   Hotel developers are spending most of their money on lodging for higher-end guests and business travelers, thanks to a strong economy and the rising cost of labor and construction material. Those are the conclusions from hospitality experts and a new hotel construction report that found 84% of all hotel projects under construction in the U.S. are for luxury, upper-scale and upper-midscale hotels. The report by Lodging Econometrics of Portsmouth, N.H., said that only 12% of hotel projects under construction are for economy or midscale hotels. The trend reflects optimism by developers that travel demand will continue to grow and that upper-scale guests and business travelers will spend heavily in the future, said Alan X. Reay, president of the Atlas Hospitality Group. “We are seeing all the positive economic indicators,” he said. “I think there is a lot of optimism with the tax cuts and the economy.” Reay said building an economy hotel no longer makes financial sense, considering the higher labor and material costs. But budget-minded travelers still can find plenty of lodging through short-term rental sites such as Airbnb and…

Orange County Business Journal 05/28/18 TILL-RISING TOURISM TIDE LIFTS OC RESORTS’ BOATS Economics, Expansion Drive Hotel Renovations By Paul Hughes https://www.ocbj.com/news/2018/may/28/economics-expansion-drive-hotel-renovations/   Sometimes, it’s just time. Hotels and resorts refresh their looks about every seven to 10 years as styles change in “linens and lotions” and as food and beverage and design trends emerge, even in the kinds of cocktails crafted for travelers. And sometimes there’s ample cash for updos. Like there is today. The local hotel business is going gangbusters, with boosts in average daily rates, occupancy and revenue per available room—despite recent talk of a peak in the U.S. hospitality industry. The result: more hotel upgrades. CBRE Hotels shows 3% to 9% hikes most months this year in all three categories, and trend lines are heading up. Average daily rates here are about $200 a night, RevPAR about $155, and occupancy a hair above 80%, if not a holy grail, at least a sweet spot for filling rooms—essentially “full employment” of inventory. “Once they hit the low-80% range, they push up the average rate,” said Alan Reay, president of Irvine consultant and broker Atlas Hospitality Group Inc. Economic data presented at the Orange County Visitors Association’s annual tourism…

The Real Deal 04/20/18 A Superpower’s Big Exit Chinese investment tanked in 2017, but some say that spells opportunity for local players By Hannah Madans | Research by Haru Coryne https://therealdeal.com/la/issues_articles/a-superpowers-big-exit   Greenland USA put a condo tower and a 350-key hotel, both part of its $1 billion Metropolis project, on the market this year. One day it was raining yuan on Los Angeles and the next it was gone. The promise of a gilded age of Chinese investment in L.A. real estate — sparked by deals like Dalian Wanda’s $420 million purchase of a Beverly Hills development site and Greenland’s massive $1 billion Downtown L.A. Metropolis project — has given way to a much harsher reality. One that features a whole lot less yuan. Restrictions on China’s capital outflow, including a crackdown this March on what it deemed financial recklessness, and its ratcheted-up anti-graft campaigns, have torpedoed the country’s investment in U.S. real estate. Recently released numbers show the net result of those changes was a 55 percent year-over-year drop in Chinese investment in U.S. commercial real estate in 2017, with just $7.3 billion funneled in last year versus $16.2 billion in 2016, according to Cushman & Wakefield. L.A….

Los Angeles Business Journal 04/27/18 Hotel Demand Breeds New Supply By Ciaran McEvoy http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2018/apr/27/hotel-demand-breeds-new-supply/   A strong economy and robust tourism sector continues to spur a boom in hotel construction locally, a trend that had Los Angeles County leading the state last year in terms of new rooms. Roughly 40 percent of the nearly 10,800 hotel rooms that came online in California in 2017 were located in L.A. County – the most in the state, according to a report by the Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group. The county also led the state with more than 5,300 hotel rooms under construction, according to Atlas, enough to make a return to the top spot likely when this year closes. Demand has remained sufficiently brisk to keep hotel general managers happy with the additions to the market’s overall inventory, viewing it as an overall positive that creates more opportunities for conventions or visitors who previously might have been priced out of staying at a local hotel or who found all the rooms booked up. “Newly opened hotels actually have a positive effect on the overall market because the more hotel rooms we have to offer collectively, the more we attract larger conventions and conferences,”…

The Mercury News 04/30/18 Hotel Tower Planned Near Santana Row Amid Google Effect By George Avalos https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/30/hotel-tower-planned-near-santana-row-amid-google-effect/   SAN JOSE — Santana Row is miles from the site of Google’s proposed transit-oriented community in downtown San Jose, yet a developer believes a high-rise hotel planned near the iconic shopping center could benefit from the search giant’s future mixed-use development. The proposed hotel tower would rise a couple of blocks from the shops and restaurants in the eastern section of Santana Row, according to plans on file with San Jose city officials. “The potential of a Google presence in downtown San Jose gives the investors a lot of good feelings about this hotel,” said Henry Cord, a land-use and planning consultant who is working with the developer on this property. The hotel is envisioned as an 11-story building with 105 rooms, the planning documents show. “We would have proximity to Santana Row, downtown San Jose, to the Google development, to the Adobe campus, to San Jose airport,” Cord said of the hotel. Discussions are underway with major hotel chains for the lodging’s brand, Cord said. “Silicon Valley hotel demand still continues to be very positive,” said Alan Reay, president of Atlas…

The Mercury News 04/24/18 High-rise Hotel Eyed for Prime Downtown San Jose Site By George Avalos https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/24/high-rise-hotel-eyed-for-prime-downtown-san-jose-site-google-adobe-diridon/ A hotel tower is being planned for a prime site in downtown San Jose, a short distance from a future Google transit village and a pending expansion of the Adobe Systems campus, one of the project’s developers said. The high-rise lodging would reach 19 stories skyward and has been proposed for a vacant parcel, now used for surface parking, at 8 N. Almaden Blvd. and West Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, the proposal from Cupertino-based developer KT Urban indicated. “Our market research indicates that it’s an excellent time to move forward with hotel rooms in the downtown core,” said Mark Tersini, a KT Urban principal executive. The high-rise hotel would contain 220 rooms, city planning documents show. “Everything we are seeing about San Jose and Silicon Valley, with all of the expansions by technology companies, shows you can definitely have enough business for hotels,” said Alan Reay, president of Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group, which tracks California’s lodging market. “But the question is: When is enough, enough?” For now, green lights beckon. Major upgrades, developments and expansions are being planned in downtown…