Atlas in the news

Orange County Register 12/30/15 Historic Downtown Los Angeles Building to Become Hip Hotel By the Associated Press http://www.ocregister.com/articles/downtown-698003-hotel-hoxton.html   LOS ANGELES – A British firm that spent $30 million on a crumbling but historic building in downtown Los Angeles plans to transform it into a hip hotel, according to a real estate brokerage. The purchase by Hoxton is the latest bet that the neighborhood’s renewal is luring tourists and not just business travelers, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. “Downtown is thriving and international companies are all taking note,” said Sara Lo, a senior manager specializing in the hospitality business at consulting and accounting firm Ernst & Young. The 1920s-era building at 11th Street and Broadway has been empty since the mid- to late 1990s. JLL, the brokerage involved in the purchase, said Hoxton is planning a hotel but declined to give additional details. A representative from Hoxton owner Ennismore of London declined to comment on the deal. Downtown has transformed in recent years, with a growing number of dining and nightlife options. The hotel market is strong — with a 77 percent occupancy rate that beats the 75 percent average for the nation’s top 25 markets, Lo said. A…

Los Angeles Times 12/29/15 British Firm Plans to Remake Historic Downtown L.A. Building into a Hip Hotel By Andrew Khouri http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-downtown-hotel-20151230-story.html   A British hotel operator has purchased a historic building in downtown Los Angeles for $30 million and plans to transform the decaying structure into a hip, stylish hotel, according to JLL, the brokerage involved in the deal. The investment is the latest bet that the neighborhood’s renaissance has created a place where tourists, not just business travelers eyeing a comfortable environment, want to lay down their heads. And with the money coming from overseas, it’s a sign investors worldwide think so too. “Downtown is thriving and international companies are all taking note,” said Sara Lo, a senior manager specializing in the hospitality business at consulting and accounting firm Ernst & Young. JLL said that Hoxton is now “underway on plans for the hotel,” but did not provide further details. The operator has hotels in London and Amsterdam and plans to open another in New York and one in Paris next year, according to its website. A representative from Hoxton owner Ennismore of London declined to comment. Hoxton describes its brand as the “anti-hotel,” where travelers find not only…

Orange County Register 12/28/15 The Hotel Boom of 2015: High Occupancy Rates, Rising Room Rates, Record Hotel Sales – The Year Had It All By Hannah Madans http://www.ocregister.com/articles/hotel-697446-hotels-new.html   The hotel industry is booming, as high occupancy and room rates make properties more valuable to own, driving hotel prices higher. The boom is manifesting in new construction, major renovations of existing properties and a record rate of hotel sales. A handful of hotels are being built in Orange County, including the Paséa in Huntington Beach. And a number of existing ones, such as the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, have undergone major renovations this year. Many other hotels changed hands as developers looked to increase their stake in Orange County’s lucrative hospitality market. In 2015, around $1.4 billion was spent on hotel purchases in Orange County, according to Atlas Hospitality Group, an Irvine-based real estate company that specializes in hotels. The firm also said that about eight hotels are under construction here, and four have opened in the past year. The industry is widely expected to continue growing in 2016, but at a slower pace. PASÉA HOTEL & SPA Across the street from the iconic Huntington Beach Pier sits the…

Los Angeles Times 12/23/15 Edition Hotel Project in West Hollywood Gets $260 Million in Financing By James Rufus Koren http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-edition-hotel-20151224-story.html   L.A.’s newest trendy boutique hotel — a luxurious 190-room property with not one but two rooftop pools — is expected to rise from the Sunset Strip this spring now that the developers have received $260 million in financing. The project from New York developer Witkoff Group will be the first West Coast outpost for the Edition hotel brand, a collaboration between hospitality giant Marriott International and former nightclub impresario Ian Schrager, a pioneer of the boutique hotel business. The financing, disclosed this week and arranged by brokerage Jones Lang Lasalle, will cover most of the estimated $300-million construction budget for the project at Sunset Boulevard and Doheny Drive, which will include as many as 20 expensive condos. That price tag implies a very high-end property, fitting for its location on the Sunset Strip, which has become a magnet over the last few years for posh hotels. Developers have proposed or are building hotels at a handful of spots, including a 149-room hotel at the site of the now-closed House of Blues and another rumored for atop the old Hustler…

The San Diego Union-Tribune 12/23/15 San Diego Loses Its Only W Hotel By Lori Weisberg http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/dec/23/san-diego-loses-its-only-w-hotel/   San Diego’s only W hotel is no more, having converted this month to a Marriott-branded Renaissance following a decision by the owners to make a change in the management and name. A presence in downtown San Diego since it opened in December of 2002, the tony 258-room highrise was until this month part of the Starwood Hotels and Resorts portfolio. Its grand opening attracted a star-studded crowd of Hollywood celebs, sports figures and local politicians, and for years was best known for its hip rooftop bar, the Beach, which featured a heated sand-covered floor…  

Orange County Register 12/19/15 Now Coming to Airbnb, the Local Hotel By Lily Leung http://www.ocregister.com/articles/airbnb-696869-hotel-hotels.html   Airbnb, synonymous with strangers renting rooms to other strangers, is attracting a new kind of host: small-scale hotels and motels trying to hawk their rooms. The trend – visible in large metro areas, including New York City, Los Angeles and to some extent in Orange County – may seem counterintuitive. After all, hotels compete with Airbnb hosts for travelers. But the strategy makes financial sense. Airbnb charges hosts a 3 percent fee for every completed booking. That’s much less than the fees at Expedia and Priceline, traditional online travel companies that market and fill a bulk number of rooms for hotels in exchange for commissions. Such websites typically charge hotels up to 25 percent, according to Fast Company. What’s more, small-hotel operators view Airbnb, which claims it has served more than 60 million guests worldwide, as just another means of bringing in customers. “It’s smart opening up channels to do business (and) to get reservations you’re normally not getting,” said Alan X. Reay, president of Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group. The operators of Nomads Hotel, a seven-room establishment in San Clemente, hopped onto the Airbnb…

Los Angeles Times 12/09/15 Coming Soon to Two Mostly Muslim Countries: Trump Hotels By Christopher Reynolds http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-trb-trouble-candidate-trump-hotels-20151208-story.html   While Donald Trump calls for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., Trump hotels face the challenge of making all guests feel welcome, and two new Trump hotels are supposed to open soon in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan and Indonesia. This tension between Trump the presidential candidate and Trump the hospitality company raises many questions. Will the Trump hotels try to distance themselves from the candidate? Will Trump’s caustic talk hurt Trump hotels abroad? How many travelers will feel comfortable in U.S. hotels bearing the Trump name? “I can’t imagine anyone of conscience wanting to step foot in one of his hotels,” said Jay Sorensen, president of Ideaworkscompany, a Wisconsin-based consulting firm that analyzes airline ancillary revenues. “This, I think, has reached a kind of tilting point.” The storm began Monday, when Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S., a move that brought denunciations from political leaders across the spectrum. My phone calls and emails to Trump hotel executives in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas went unreturned on Tuesday. Trump Hotel Waikiki spokeswoman Alyssa Hui said “Our hotel welcomes…

San Francisco Business Times 12/02/15 CBRE Global Snaps Up High-Profile Peninsula Hotel By Nathan Donato-Weinstein http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/morning_call/2015/12/redwood-city-sofitel-hotel-acquisition-cbre-global.html The Bay Area’s booming hospitality sector means more development, higher room rates — and property sales. Case in point: Redwood City’s Sofitel San Francisco Bay has just sold to CBRE Global Investors, which paid $154.5 million for the 421-room luxury property this week, public records show. The price amounts to about $367,000 per room. “We just continue to be fairly bullish on the Bay Area in general, and that whole corridor from San Francisco to San Jose,” said John Sauter, a principal with CBRE Global. “This hotel has a unique position relative to all the corporate demand there, but there’s also not a lot of other nicer, leisure options in the Valley. We would put this in that category of a full-service, high-end hotel.” It’s the latest in a parade of large hospitality transactions in the Bay Area, and represents a nice profit for Prudential Real Estate Investors and joint-venture partner Lodging Capital. They bought the property in 2012 for $92.5 million, then pumped about $9 million into renovations. The hotel at 223 Twin Dolphin Drive was built in 1987 and includes 20,000 square…

Orange County Register 11/16/15 Hotel Mantra: Bigger Is Better, as a Travel Boom and Rising Room Rates Lead to Merger Mania By Jonathan Lansner http://www.ocregister.com/articles/hotel-692351-hotels-percent.html No business has been hotter than hotels coming out of the recession – and the money chasing that momentum has been equally impressive. Monday brought another megadeal to the industry, as hotel chain operator Marriott International said it would pay $12.2 billion for competitor Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The deal would create the world’s biggest hotel management company, operating or franchising 5,500 hotels with 1.1 million rooms worldwide. Locally, Starwood runs the St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point; Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa; Sheraton Park Hotel in Anaheim; and Sheraton Garden Grove. Just two months ago, investment giant Blackstone Group – already owner of the Hilton and Motel 6 chains – said it would pay $6 billion for Strategic Hotel, owners of 17 luxury hotels, including Orange County’s Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel and Montage Laguna Beach. The buying spree means California hotels are in high demand. A record $4.4 billion was spent to buy 174 California hotels in the first half of this year, according to Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group, a hotel consulting…

Sacramento Business Journal 11/23/15 Construction Timeline for Sacramento Kings Hotel Tower Is Slipping By Ben van der Meer http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/blog/morning-roundup/2015/11/is-slipping.html   The cranes are in place, site work is underway and some tenants have been announced for the 16-story mixed-use tower opposite Golden 1 Center. Described as a complement to the arena, the tower is a focal point for the retail/entertainment area the Sacramento Kings call Downtown Commons. Plans call for the tower to accommodate 250 hotel rooms, 45,000 square feet of retail space, some office space and about 50 top-floor luxury condominiums. But less than a year before the team’s arena opens, contractors haven’t yet pulled permits for vertical construction. Given the usual timelines for such a building, that suggests the tower will still be under construction when the arena opens next fall. That casts serious doubt on team suggestions that the building would be partially open by the first game in October 2016. The team also may not make its goal of having the tower hotel, carrying the Kimpton brand, open in time to host NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament games in March 2017. Team officials, without elaboration, would only say the project is still on track to…

Silicon Valley Business Journal 11/18/15 Exclusive First Look: Why Sunnyvale’s Sleek New Millennium Hotel Is Being Built in Poland By Nathan Donato-Weinstein http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/11/18/exclusive-first-look-why-sunnyvales-sleek-new.html   Sometime in the next two years or so, craftsmen in Poland will put the finishing touches on 263 individual hotel rooms, then stack them on a single container ship bound for the Port of Oakland. From there, they’ll be trucked to a vacant lot in Sunnyvale, where they will be unloaded one by one and assembled on-site into Northern California’s first Millennium Hotel. It will go up in about 12 weeks. A similar prefab strategy will result in a 250-unit residential complex next door, but instead of a sea voyage, the apartments will take a six-day train trip from a factory in Idaho. “We are not only challenging ourselves to build a new, different kind of hotel,” said Aloysius Lee, group chief executive officer for Millennium Hotels and Resorts, the London-based company behind the project. “We are also challenging ourselves in using new technology, a new methodology of building.” The estimated $200 million development represents what could be the most ambitious modular construction effort yet undertaken in Silicon Valley. While prefabricated units have been used in…