Atlas in the news

CoStar 07/27/18 The Hotel Market Is Looking Good in L.A., but It’s Not All About Size Development Remains Strong, Especially in the Downtown Core By Karen Jordan https://product.costar.com/home/news/shared/193746   ‘If you build it, they will come,’ seems to be the mantra for hotel construction in California lately, and Los Angeles is leading the pack. Los Angeles County is ahead of the rest of the state with 246 hotels and 37,682 hotel rooms in the pipeline this year. It is an increase of 21 percent and 24 percent, respectively, over last year, according to Atlas Hospitality’s 2018 Mid-Year California Hotel Development Survey. The size of Los Angeles County does play a role. The total number of hotels in the county probably equals San Diego and Orange County combined, according to Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group said. However, there are also other considerations. “There’s no question that the downtown Los Angeles market, with the tax incentives that the city has offered, has really spurred hotel development,” Reay said, adding that the planned expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center has also factored in. The proposed $1.2 billion expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center would include expanding the JW Marriott…

CoStar 07/30/18 More Hotels on the Way in San Diego, Orange Counties By Lou Hirsh http://www.costar.com/News/Article/More-Hotels-on-the-Way-in-San-Diego-Orange-Counties/203167   Thanks in part to a still-strong national tourism economy, hotel development pipelines remain robust in Southern California’s San Diego and Orange counties. A new mid-year statewide report shows those two areas trail only Los Angeles County within the golden state for the number of hotel rooms under construction and in planning. Atlas Hospitality Group, an Irvine, CA-based brokerage and research firm, noted San Diego County had 21 hotels with 3,410 rooms under construction at the mid-point of 2018, the largest of which is the 400-room InterContinental, set to open later this year on the downtown San Diego waterfront. The San Diego region had another 84 hotels in planning, up 11 percent from a year ago, with a total of 17,080 rooms, up 13 percent. Just north in Orange County, there were nine hotels with 2,391 rooms under construction, including the 613-room Westin Anaheim Resort. That region had another 63 hotels in planning, up 26 percent, with 10,756 rooms, up 3 percent. All of this is happening after California hotels have experienced nearly eight straight years of revenue and occupancy growth, as the industry…

Laguna Beach Independent 07/30/18 Old Hotel Receives Hip Makeover By Andrea Adelson https://www.lagunabeachindy.com/old-hotel-receives-hip-makeover/   A roadside apartment hotel in North Laguna initially built in 1949 will soon welcome guests following an eight-month renovation by a hotel developer-owner known for seeking distinctive properties. Painted in a contemporary palette of bright white bordered by black trim, the former Laguna Beach Motor Inn expects to open its doors in August as Hotel Joaquin, the newest project of the Makarechian family. Workers take a lunch break from installing landscaping around the soon to be open boutique Hotel Joaquin, at Coast Highway and Fairview St. Hotel Joaquin is part of Auric Road, formerly Makar Properties of Beverly Hills, which owns two other boutique hotel properties – Korakia Pensione in Palm Springs and Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, Mont., — also recent acquisitions by the family business. Auric Road properties seem intended to appeal to the globetrotting millennial population that shuns chain hotels for chic environs with personal amenities like wine tastings, on-site spas, wifi wired work spaces and high thread-count bedding, suggests Skift, a website tracking travel industry trends. With its cove-filled coastline alluring visitors for a more than a century, Laguna now attracts…

Los Angeles Times 07/26/18 California’s Hotel Construction Sets a Blistering Pace By Lori Weisberg http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-hotel-construction-20180725-story.html   Coming off a 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 182 hotels accounting for nearly 25,000 rooms under construction up and down the state — a 40% increase over the first half of 2017, reports the Atlas Hospitality Group in its semiannual survey of hotel development. Expect more of the same, especially in Southern California destinations such as downtown Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as Anaheim, where developers have been especially bullish. Of the 2,400 hotel rooms being built in Orange County, the vast majority — nearly 1,800 — are in Anaheim. The largest hotel to open in Los Angeles County so far this year is the 288-room Sheraton Los Angeles San Gabriel, which caters to Chinese visitors with Mandarin-speaking concierges and a high-end Sichuan restaurant. It has a fleet of eight robots that can offer guests directions and deliver towels and other items to the rooms. In downtown Los Angeles, the luxurious NoMad occupies a 12-story former Bank of Italy office building built in…

The Orange County Register 07/27/18 Does Southern California Need 472 More Hotels? By Jonathan Lansner https://www.ocregister.com/2018/07/27/does-southern-california-need-472-more-hotels/   More than a few folks in the tourism trade seem antsy these days with tough trade talks scaring off some foreign visitors and rising costs nipping at profits. But Southern California hotel operators are staying in a construction mood, opening 11 lodging facilities in 2018’s first half with 472 more being built or planned. The building boom suggests the long-run outlook appears sunny to local hotel executives, according to what’s found in Atlas Hospitality’s first-half summary of the hotel construction scene in the four counties covered by the Southern California News Group. Of statewide conditions, Atlas Hospitality wrote: “Lenders and developers continue to be very bullish on new California hotel construction, as they see a very positive long-term outlook for the Golden State. The fact that construction costs are up 20 to 25 percent over the last 12 months seems to have done little to dampen the pace of development. Midway through 2018, all signs continue to be positive.” Here are seven hotel industry trends from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties … 1. What’s new: The four-county region had 11…

The Real Deal 07/25/18 LA’s Hotel Boom Continues Despite Rising Construction Costs: Report Hotel rooms under construction rose 25 percent in first half of year By Natalie Hoberman https://therealdeal.com/la/2018/07/25/las-hotel-boom-continues-despite-rising-construction-costs-report Hotel development, both in L.A. and across California, remained strong in the first half of the year, fueled by high occupancy rates and profitable revenue streams. In Los Angeles County, the number of hotel rooms under construction has increased 25 percent year-over-year since January, according to a new semi-annual survey published by Atlas Hospitality Group. There are currently 37 hotels with 5,631 rooms under construction. That’s a sizable increase from the four hotels that have already opened this year, the Los Angeles Times reported. The growth spurt comes amid a 25 percent rise in construction costs, Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality, told the LAT. Still, that has yet to deter many developers from flocking to the region, where a notoriously tough permitting process has kept supply low. The boom is being echoed statewide. In California, 183 hotels with nearly 26,000 rooms are currently under construction, reflecting a roughly 40 percent increase from the same time last year. Orange and San Diego counties posted some of the largest upticks, rising 100…

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,…