Atlas in the news

The Mercury News 02/23/18 Homes in a Hotel? That’s the Plan for This Downtown San Jose Development By George Avalos https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/23/downtown-san-jose-hotel-will/ SAN JOSE — The developers of a hotel planned for the Diridon train station area in downtown San Jose have filed plans with city officials that sketch the concept of high-rise lodging with guestrooms and permanent residences. San Jose officials previously indicated a hotel was planned for property purchased in January at 292 Stockton Ave., but new details have emerged about the development plan. The hotel would rise nine stories and have 254 rooms. And in a possible first for San Jose, the hotel also would contain 19 permanent residences, according to a preliminary proposal submitted to San Jose planners. An affiliate of Dallas-based Kade Development paid $4 million on Jan. 16 for a vacant lot at the corner of Stockton Avenue and West Julian Street, according to Santa Clara County property records. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency was the seller. “Right now, it’s not an obvious location for a hotel, but when you look at the plans for downtown San Jose, this hotel would be right in the heart of everything that’s going to happen,” said Dharmesh Patel,…

The Sun 02/24/18 Southern California to Get 75 More Hotels After 39 Opened Last Year By Jonathan Lansner https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2018/02/24/southern-california-to-get-75-more-hotels/ Southern California’s hotel building boom continues. Atlas Hospitality reports the five-county region saw 39 hotels open last year, bringing 7,331 more rooms to Southern California. That’s up from 22 new properties with 3,955 rooms in 2016. And the construction surge won’t stop soon: 75 hotels with 12,237 rooms are under construction in the region. Yes, there are more hotels under construction than the slew that opened in the past two years across the region. Last year, the five-county region saw 39 hotels open with 7,331 rooms vs. 22 new properties with 3,955 rooms in 2016. Hotel operators are rushing to create more places for visitors to sleep to catch one of the hottest turnaround stories of the recovery from the Great Recession. Here’s how construction breaks down by county … Los Angeles County: 23 new hotels with 4,309 rooms vs. eight openings with 1,098 rooms in 2016. Biggest? 889‐room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. Under construction: 32 hotels with 5,327 rooms. San Diego County: Four new hotels with 826 rooms vs. six hotels with 1,017 rooms in 2016. Biggest? 317‐room Pendry San…

The Orange County Register 02/25/18 Southern California Hotel Rooms Get Pricier: for Tourists and Investors By Jonathan Lansner https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/25/southern-california-hotel-rooms-get-pricier-for-tourists-and-investors/   The Southern California hotel industry’s upswing continues to surprise. The basic business has enjoyed a remarkable turnabout from the Great Recession that’s attracted fresh money for construction and purchases. The industry’s ongoing surge has made at least one expert second-guess himself. “It’s been an incredible run-up the past seven years. I thought ’17 would be the start of a lull … and I was wrong,” says hotel analyst Alan Reay at Atlas Hospitality Group. “What I know is that this run-up has got less time to run after six or seven years of it.” Let’s note that you’re seeing a few more “vacancy” signs at Southern California hotels, much of that due to the wave of hotel construction. And, yes, there’s a curious slowdown in the industry’s hiring pace — remember, that’s still growth mode. But room rates — and profitability — continue to rise at most Southern California hotels. That keeps hotel operators opening more places for visitors to sleep while buyers eye that flood of visitors — and are still willing to acquire existing hotels. Good numbers According…

The Orange County Register 02/23/18 $3.8 Billion Worth of Southern California Hotels Sold in 2017 By Jonathan Lansner https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/23/southern-californian-hotels-sales-worth-3-8-billion-in-2017/ Southern California hotels continue to be hot properties with buyers eyeing a flood of visitors paying rising nightly rates and leaving only a modest number of empty rooms. Atlas Hospitality reports 180 Southern California hotels were sold in 2017 — seven more deals that 2016 and including 17,051 rooms — up 8 percent in a year. And buyers paid up, spending $3.8 billion to acquire Southern California hotels last year, a 22 percent jump above 2016’s deals. The median hotel value, per room, rose 8 percent. The Atlas report attributes the buying binge to continued investor interest in hotels statewide — especially from the Asia/Pacific region and investors moving out of other commercial real estate niches. Atlas noted that 32 “trophy” hotels, priced $50-million-plus, sold in California in 2017, more than any other state. Prices and sales volumes rose in most parts of Southern California. Riverside County was a hotspot with a record 31 hotels sold, up nine from 2016 — although per-room values decreased 7 percent. Biggest deal? $160 million for the 884-room JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort in Palm…

The Orange County Register 02/23/18 Chinese Government Now Controls Local Resorts Ritz-Carlton, Montage, Loews Santa Monica By Jonathan Lansner https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/23/chinese-government-now-controls-ritz-carlton-montage-loews-santa-monica/ The Chinese government has seized control of an insurance company that owns a collection of U.S. luxury hotels including Montage Laguna Beach in Laguna Beach, Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point and Loews Santa Monica. China’s government on Friday, Feb. 23, announced the takeover of Anbang Insurance Group and said its company’s founder Wu Xiaohui would be prosecuted for financial crimes. Anbang was part of a group of fast-growing Chinese companies making high-profile real estate investments in recent years. China’s regulatory action confirms industry suspicions that Anbang’s bets may have been too risky. Bloomberg News reported China’s insurance regulator says it plans to run Anbang and its $315 billion in assets for at least one year and the insurer’s operations remain “stable” and unspecified asset disposals are planned. Anbang acquired its three Southern California luxury resorts in 2016 with its purchase of 15 of 16 hotels owned by Strategic Hotels & Resorts of Chicago. The original deal included the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, but that resort was taken out of the acquisition due to U.S. security concerns. Anbang’s…

The Mercury News 02/21/18 Hotel Planned for Downtown San Jose’s South Side By George Avalos https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/21/hotel-planned-for-downtown-san-joses-south-side/ SAN JOSE — A large new hotel is being proposed for the south side of downtown San Jose, which could form a gleaming gateway — along with other projects — to the urban core of the Bay Area’s largest city. “This is a preliminary review request for a seven-story hotel with 110 guestrooms and two levels of underground parking with 40 parking spaces,” said Genevieve Singh, a spokeswoman for San Jose’s city planning, building and code enforcement department. The hotel, the latest in a slew of proposals for downtown San Jose, is planned for the corner of South Second and East Reed streets. In an apparent nod to the rise of transportation besides driving alone in motor vehicles, the hotel also will have 10 long-term and 10 short-term spaces to park bicycles, city planners stated. The location of the proposed hotel might be seen by some as a bit off the beaten path in downtown San Jose, tucked away at the edge of Interstate 280 on the south end of the city center. What the proposal may show, however, is that what is considered…

The San Diego Union-Tribune 02/16/18 Hotel Sales in San Diego Surpassed $611M in 2017, with Few Signs of a Slowdown By Lori Weisberg http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/tourism/sd-fi-hotel-sales-20180216-story.html   Hotels continue to be a much desired commodity in California, which last year saw more than $6 billion in properties trade hands, from the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad to the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in Goleta. Although the $6.2 billion in sales fell short of the peak of $9.5 billion set in 2015, there are few signs of a slowdown in sales activity, according to a year-end report released by Orange County-based Atlas Hospitality Group. In Los Angeles County, the sales volume hit a new record — $1.67 billion, which was a 26 percent increase over 2017, Atlas reported. While San Diego County’s $611.8 million in sales was not a record, it represented a healthy 29 percent increase compared to a year earlier. “We were anticipating at the end of 2016 for sales to slow down and that didn’t happen, and there are a number of reasons for that,” said Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group. “There are still attractive loans at low interest rates, there’s a tremendous amount of overseas capital coming into California,…

WEHOville.com 02/14/18 Stats Show WeHo Is a Leader in L.A. County’s Hotel Boom http://www.wehoville.com/2018/02/14/stats-show-weho-leader-l-countys-hotel-boom/   There is a hotel boom going on, with West Hollywood a leader in some respects. New hotel development in California in 2017 exceeded the peak set in 2008, according to a report by Atlas Hospitality Group, a hotel sales and investment organization. Atlas reports that 10,793 rooms opened in 66 hotels across the state. The previous record was 10,286 rooms in 2008. Hotel sales in Los Angeles County also hit a new record last year. The $1.7 billion in hotel sales last year is an increase of $344 million over sales in 2016. Atlas reports that the median hotel room purchase price in Los Angeles grew to $127,211, the highest it has been since 2008. That record was achieved in part by the sale of two hotels in West Hollywood, which Atlas reports were the largest acquisitions in L.A. last year Starwood’s purchase of the Jeremy on Sunset Boulevard in June fo $280 million from the C.I.M. Group was the largest sale in L.A. County. The biggest buy in terms of price per room was Jeff Klein’s decision last year to buy out the majority…

The Orange County Register 02/13/18 Boutique Hotel Operator Kimpton Will Add Rooms in Anaheim, Garden Grove Resort District By Alicia Robinson https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/13/boutique-hotel-operator-kimpton-will-add-rooms-in-anaheim-garden-grove-resort-district/   A 200-room, upscale boutique hotel will be coming in 2021 to Harbor Boulevard in the resort district shared by Anaheim and Garden Grove. The project by Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, part of a five-acre development of shops and restaurants in Garden Grove, will include 10,000 square feet of meeting space, two restaurants and a rooftop pool and bar, said Ed Virtue, Kimpton’s director of operations for Southern California. Kimpton hotels offer guests bicycles to use, morning coffee and an evening wine reception and other such amenities, Virtue said, but it’s hard to say what the Anaheim-area facility will look like because the company designs each hotel to reflect its neighborhood. “Even though it’s right by Disneyland and it’s so close to those other venues (such as Angel Stadium and the Honda Center), it’s going to have its own personality,” he said. Kimpton officials declined to give the cost of the new hotel, but Virtue estimated room rates could be in the range of $200 to $400 a night. The new Kimpton property is part of an ongoing…

The Daily Transcript 02/12/18 Hotel Sales Strong; Overbuilding Concerns Lurk By Thor Kamban Biberman https://www.sdtranscript.com/common/login/?source=news&sourceid=966795   San Diego County’s hotel market saw a big hike in the number of sales and the overall dollar volume in 2017, according to an Atlas Hospitality Group report. A total of 29 hotels were sold last year, marking a 38 percent increase from 2016, while the total dollar volume went up by nearly 30 percent to $611.77 million. The county’s average price per room rose 16 percent year-over-year in 2017, and the median price per room increased by 9 percent to a record $126,510. The median price level was $116,458 in 2016. The number of sold rooms in San Diego County went up by 10.6 percent from 2,462 in 2016 to 2,723 in 2017. The median price of a hotel sold in San Diego County decreased slightly from $8.15 million in 2016 to $7.1 million last year. The 600-room Wyndham San Diego Bayside was the largest sale in terms of the number of rooms. RLJ Lodging acquired the asset as part of its $2.9 billion acquisition of FelCor Lodging Trust. At $186.5 million, the 329-room Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad was the most expensive…

TopHotelNews 02/13/18 California Hotels Set Room Growth Record in 2017 By Zack Quaintance https://tophotel.news/california-hotels-set-rooms-record-2017/   California set a record in 2017 for the number of hotel rooms opened. Sources believe this illustrates that the state is able to take on new supply. For that reason, California is now on track to see another record year of development in 2018. Some experts, however, are wondering how much more supply the state will be able to handle before its performance begins to suffer. California Hotels in 2017 Atlas Hospitality Group, which was responsible for the 2017 California Hotel Development Survey, predicted a strong 2017 for hotel development in California. However, experts with the group have noted that nobody expected the total number of new room openings to get as high as it did. The number of new room openings in California for 2017 reached 10,793 spread across 66 hotels. This surpasses the previous record, which was 10,286 new rooms, set in 2008. Experts said several factors contributed to this record-setting total, including a strong California economy. California Hotel Revenue New rooms was not the only record that the California hotel market set in 2017. It also set a new high mark for…

The Real Deal 02/12/18 LA County Hotel Sales Hit a Record $1.7B in 2017: Report The local market is expected to add thousands more rooms in 2018 By Dennis Lynch https://therealdeal.com/la/2018/02/12/la-county-hotel-sales-hit-a-record-1-7-billion-in-2017-report/   Hotel sales in Los Angeles County reached a record $1.7 billion last year, as the city prepares for thousands of new rooms to flood the local market in the coming years. The total is a $344 million increase in overall sales from 2016, according to a year-end report by Atlas Hospitality Group. The study also found that median price per room jumped up to $127,211 last year, exceeding $120,000 for the first time since 2008. That’s despite the fact that there were fewer transactions recorded in 2017 compared with the previous two years. A pair of West Hollywood hotels topped the list of biggest deals in 2017, in total sale price and price per room. Starwood’s $280 million purchase of the Jeremy in West Hollywood in June was the largest transaction in total dollars. Jeff Klein’s surprise buyout of the 81-key Sunset Tower Hotel topped price per room figures. Klein paid $90 million, or $1.13 million per room, for the stake in the celebrity favorite hotel. Late last…