Atlas in the news

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/11/04/newport-beach-marriott-hotel-sells-for-216-million/ It’s California’s priciest hotel sale so far in 2020. By JONATHAN LANSNER | jlansner@scng.com | Orange County Register PUBLISHED: November 4, 2020 at 6:21 p.m. | UPDATED: November 5, 2020 at 9:54 a.m. The 532-room Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa has been sold for $216 million. Host Hotels and Resorts announced the sale — California’s priciest so far in 2020, according to Atlas Hospitality Group — on Wednesday, Nov. 4. The buyer was Eagle Four Partners, hotel investors from Newport Beach who control local properties such as Balboa Bay Resort, Paséa Hotel & Spa in Huntington Beach as well as the Newport Beach Country Club. The sale comes as COVID-19 hammers the tourism business, making property transactions a challenge. Atlas said in 2020’s first half there were 18% fewer sales in Orange County vs. 2019, and the median price per room was down 19%. The Newport Beach Marriott is located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific at the Fashion Island shopper center. Opened in 1975, it had a major renovation in 2005. Host documents show the Newport Marriott had an average room rate of $203 last year when it was 79% full and made the owners $15 million off of $54 million in revenues. The…

https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2020/nov/02/beverly-hills-hotel-sells-new-york-investment-firm/ By Hannah Madans Monday, November 2, 2020 EOS Investors has emerged as the buyer of the famed Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills luxury hotel. News broke in July that the 116-room hotel had a $100 million stalking horse bid but was headed to auction. The auction was later canceled, and the stalking horse bidder, now revealed to be New York-based EOS Investors, purchased the property. “We are excited for the opportunity to expand the EOS portfolio with a world-class property in an unparalleled luxury hotel destination such as Beverly Hills,” EOS Investors President Jonathan Wang said in a statement. In addition to hotel rooms, which average 805 square feet, the Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills has a rooftop pool and event deck. It also has a restaurant and bar, spa, fitness room and lounge. The hotel is located at 9291 Burton Way, near Rodeo Drive. “Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills represents a rare opportunity to acquire irreplaceable hotel real estate in a sought-after luxury market with significant long-term barriers to entry,” Tom Burns, vice president of EOS Investors said in a statement. “As we look to the future, we are focused on strategically investing capital to build upon the hotel’s storied legacy and…

https://therealdeal.com/la/2020/10/30/inside-las-opaque-program-to-house-homeless-in-hotels/ Jose Huizar-tied firm that owns LA Grand Hotel Downtown has been receiving federal tax dollars to participate in Project Roomkey TRD LOS ANGELES / By Matt Blake October 30, 2020 07:30 AM Less than a year ago, black SUVs and international tourists crowded the L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, a prime property near Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Broad Museum. Today, Salvation Army tents surround the hotel on South Figueroa Street, and a flow of homeless men and women stream in and out. Chad is one of them. He said he’s been staying at the L.A. Grand since March, after spending nights next to the Harbor Freeway. Rhonda is another. She said the hotel took her in because she has Hepatitis C. For over seven months, the 469-key glass complex has been one of several Los Angeles hotels paid to house the homeless through Project Roomkey. Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced the program to shelter and isolate those most vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus. L.A. Grand’s inclusion in Project Roomkey raises questions given that its owner, Shenzhen New World Group, has been implicated in an elaborate pay-to-play scandal involving former L.A. City Council member Jose Huizar. L.A. County officials would not discuss their choice to partner with…

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/28/coronavirus-real-estate-bay-area-hotel-loan-woes-intensify/ Big hotels in East Bay, San Francisco, join Silicon Valley hotels with mortgage problems By GEORGE AVALOS | gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: October 28, 2020 at 9:25 a.m. | UPDATED: October 28, 2020 at 3:59 p.m. PLEASANTON — A widening array of loan-related woes have begun to surface for hotels in at least four counties in the Bay Area, an indication that the economic damage from coronavirus-linked shutdowns has yet to run its course. Five hotels in the East Bay, South Bay, and San Francisco — all deemed by experts to be high-end lodging facilities — now are suffering severe financial distress, according to multiple public disclosures obtained by this news organization. “I think this is just the beginning of the problems with hotels,” said Alan Reay, president of Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group, which tracks the California lodging market. “Hotels in business-oriented markets are really taking the brunt of the pandemic now.” The difficulties that have engulfed the five Bay Area hotels were revealed in notices of default or by disclosures that the hotel owners are willing to yield ownership of their properties to the holders of specialized financing vehicles known in real estate circles as collateralized mortgage-backed securities. The latest crop of…

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/business/2020/10/16/despite-pandemic–new-luxury-hotels-open-near-disneyland-in-anaheim BY JOSEPH PIMENTEL ORANGE COUNTY PUBLISHED 9:00 AM ET OCT. 17, 2020 ANAHEIM, Calif. — The new Radisson Blu Anaheim has reserved the 12th floor of the hotel for adults. The 12th floor will feature a rooftop pool and jacuzzi, a full-service restaurant with an exhibition kitchen, indoor and outdoor bars, fire pits, and a seating area where guests can see Disneyland and on a clear day the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. “We really think this is going to be a destination,” Radisson Blu Anaheim General Manager Steve Lindburg said of the hotel owned by BPM Real Estate Group. “We really envision this place, the 12th floor, as the area where couples or a business traveler looking for a quiet moment can just come up to the roof and enjoy themselves. Downstairs we have a kid’s area with an Oasis pool and splash pads.” What You Need To Know Three new luxury hotels are opening near Disneyland in Anaheim The hotels are opening in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic Hotel occupancy in Anaheim has dropped to below 20 percent The three hotels are the first luxury products in Anaheim outside of Disney-owned hotels Less than a mile away,…

https://therealdeal.com/la/2020/10/20/developers-plan-96-key-koreatown-hotel/ Six-story project proposal comes as LA hotels continue to struggle to fill rooms TRD LOS ANGELES / October 20, 2020 11:50 AM By Dennis Lynch | Research By Jerome Dineen Hotel construction projects in California may be struggling right now, but a pair of Los Angeles developers are looking to the future. A newly-proposed development calls for a 96-key hotel to rise on the southeast corner of Koreatown, property records show. An LLC managed by Kyong Baek and Jai Baek wants to build the six-story hotel at 956-962 Menlo Avenue. They could not be immediately reached for comment. Through 1040 Dewey LLC, the Baeks acquired the two small residential properties at that location in separate transactions for a total of $4.5 million in June 2018 and June 2019, property records show. The filing follows a report in August that showed the near-term outlook bleak for proposed hotel development projects in California. Atlas Hospitality Group concluded that the vast majority of hotel projects in planning will not get built. The report tracked hotel projects in the first six months of 2020. L.A. area hotels have improved slightly since the early days of the pandemic. As of mid-September, the vacancy rate at L.A. hotels was nearly 57 percent, according to…

https://www.ocbj.com/news/2020/oct/19/hotel-industrys-lost-momentum/ SIX OPEN IN 2020; FUTURE PLANS IN DOUBT By Katie Murar Monday, October 19, 2020 2020 has been the hardest time for local hotels in recent history, due to the impact of the pandemic on travel, according to longtime industry observers. “California hotels were on a very steep curve in 2018 and 2019 across the board, with increases in under construction, planned and opened properties,” Atlas Hospitality Group founder Alan Reay previously told the Business Journal. “That momentum is lost.” In the previous market crash in 2009, hotel room revenues in Orange County’s tourism-driver, Anaheim, fell 17% from year-ago levels. In the first eight months of 2020, that figure is down nearly 56% year-over-year, a figure topping the 54% drop experienced in Los Angeles, according to travel research firm STR. Occupancy continues to suffer, with levels around 46% for the first seven months of the year, down from typical averages around 75%, according to STR. Average daily rates for OC hotels stood at about $132 at the end of August, down 19% from a year ago. This year’s ranking of the top hotels in Orange County by room count doesn’t take into account temporary closures. Several local properties on…

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/19/silicon-valley-hotel-default-loan-coronavirus-slump-real-estate-tech/ Sunnyvale hotel, Mountain View hotel, fall behind on mortgage By GEORGE AVALOS | gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: October 19, 2020 SUNNYVALE — Two hotels in Silicon Valley have defaulted on their mortgages and face murky futures, fresh evidence that the economic woes unleashed by the coronavirus may widen. A mortgage on the hotels, one in Sunnyvale and one in Mountain View, has landed in default and could be foreclosed, public documents filed in September in Santa Clara County show. The hotels that primarily serve the hotel and business markets are taking the biggest hit,” said Alan Reay, president of Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group, which tracks the lodging market. The South Bay hotels whose loans are in default, according to county property records filed in early September: — Wild Palms Hotel, with 208 rooms, at 910 E. Fremont Ave. in Sunnyvale. — Hotel Avante, with 91 rooms, at 860 E. El Camino Real in Mountain View. An analysis of the hotels a few years ago showed that both the Wild Palms Hotel and the Hotel Avante are part of the Joie de Vivre hotel group, which is a boutique chain that’s owned by Hyatt Hotels. Hyatt completed a purchase of Joie…

https://product.costar.com/home/news/shared/365081903?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personalized&utm_content=p4 Spring 2021 Debut Planned for Upscale Oceanside Complex with Hollywood Connection By Lou Hirsh  CoStar News October 12, 2020 | 3:52 P.M. Developer S.D. Malkin plans a spring 2021 opening for what is being billed as the San Diego region’s largest oceanfront hotel project in more than a century, a project aimed at attracting tourist interest for a vintage house used in the filming of the 1980s movie “Top Gun.” The two-hotel complex in downtown Oceanside, California, is designed to total 387 rooms in the new Mission Pacific Hotel and Seabird Resort. The project sits on the site of the Victorian-style Oceanside beachfront house, originally built in 1887, where stars Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis filmed several interior and exterior scenes in the hit fighter pilot film. The hotel development required the relocation of the vintage house to a spot in between the two new buildings. Despite a brutal pandemic climate for U.S. hotels, developers and operators of the planned beachfront complex are counting on that Hollywood connection and continued regional drive-in leisure traffic to boost prospects. “We have a very strong ‘drive to’ market, running from Los Angeles to Phoenix, and we think that will remain strong in this coming year,”…

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/10/12/largest-hotels-hit-watchlist-cmbs-park-hotels.html By Alex Barreira  – Staff Reporter, San Francisco Business Times October 12, 2020 The owner of the Bay Area’s two largest Hilton hotels has requested help meeting obligations on a $725 million loan backed by the two properties, a potential sign of trouble for a hotel market already battered by the pandemic. The borrower, Park Hotels & Resorts Group Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust based in McLean, Virginia, hasn’t missed any regular debt payments on the loan but has landed on an industry watchlist for commercial-mortgage back securities at risk of defaulting. The CMBS loan is backed by the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the Hilton Parc 55, which both remain closed amid the travel slowdown caused by Covid-19. The Union Square property, the region’s largest hotel, has 1,921 rooms and a 2016 appraised value of $1.02 billion, while the Parc 55, a block away from its larger sister hotel, has 1,024 rooms and an appraised value of $540.4 million. DOUGLAS FRUEHLING The 2016 loan originally from JP Morgan Chase & Co. was repackaged and sold to Wells Fargo as a CMBS. Wells Fargo granted Park Hotels (NYSE: PK) a six-month deferral of its regular contributions (typically 4% of revenue at Park…

https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2020/10/07/hotels-motels-struggling-in-covid-times/ Business is down 30 to 40 percent at one Vallejo establishment By Katy St. Clair | kstclair@timesheraldonline.com | Vallejo Times Herald PUBLISHED: October 7, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. | UPDATED: October 7, 2020 at 6:14 p.m. The COVID-19 pandemic has sent destructive ripples throughout the economy, as the bar, restaurant and hospitality industry has been one of the most affected. Not only have people lost jobs in those industries — with more than 5.9 million jobs lost by May of this year according to Restaurant Business Online — but less people are patronizing existing establishments. The catastrophe is an “imperfect storm” of Americans having less disposable income, a fear of catching coronavirus, with more and more businesses going under. Another industry hard-hit by the pandemic has been that of hospitality. The hotel/motel business has not only counted on travelers for its bedrock, but also business travelers and convention traffic, all of which have been put on hiatus during the pandemic. Alan Reay, founder and president of the Atlas Hospitality Group brokerage firm, keeps a close eye on industry trends and statistics and reports that as of August of this year, hotel revenues in California have fallen 65.5 percent. The…

https://product.costar.com/home/news/shared/1561657411?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personalized&utm_content=p4 Owner of Santa Monica Properties Making Delayed Loan Payments in Tough Climate By Lou Hirsh CoStar News October 7, 2020 | 4:56 P.M. The owner of two prominent beachfront hotels in Santa Monica, California, said the operators caught up on payments on what had been the nation’s biggest newly delinquent loan, following unprecedented challenges for hotels nationwide during the pandemic. A report this week by credit tracking firm Fitch Ratings said the $357 million loan secured by full-service, luxury hotels Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa del Mar, owned by Edward Thomas Co., was the largest new commercial property loan delinquency reported nationwide in September. Hotel operators said Tuesday they have become current on payments through September, after the loan was transferred to special servicing in April and the company missed payments in May and June. “Despite the toll that COVID-19 took on the commercial mortgage backed securities market, the Edward Thomas Company is current on all debt service payments,” company spokesman Doug Elmets said in an email to CoStar News. Like many Southern California hotels, the two properties in coastal Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles, closed in mid-March and reopened at reduced capacities in July. Overall Los Angeles regional hotel occupancy…