Atlas in the news

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…

The Registry 04/24/18 KT Urban Proposes 220-Room Hotel in San Jose Next to Hotel De Anza By Vladimir Bosanac http://news.theregistrysf.com/kt-urban-proposes-220-room-hotel-in-san-jose-next-to-hotel-de-anza/   Each week seems to be marked by news about downtown San Jose. The central business district of the Bay Area’s largest city has seen much-deserved attention since Apple and Google have announced to build mega-campuses inside the city limits and Adobe doubled down on their urban campus there. This week, another exciting project has been submitted to city planners for consideration—a 220-room luxury hotel at 270 West Santa Clara Street, called Almaden Corner, on the same block as the famed Hotel De Anza and the Axis condominium building. The project, designed by Portland, Oregon-based C2K Architecture, was submitted by Cupertino-based KT Urban, which has been actively pursuing a number of developments in the city’s downtown core in the recent years. KT Urban’s project is just entering the comprehensive preliminary review process, so at this point in time, the design may be subject to change, as well as the massing and scale of the proposed project. What the developer has envisioned is a 19-story high-rise that would provide roughly 157,000 square feet of space and 220 guest rooms on a…

Los Angeles Times 04/20/18 By James Rufus Koren http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-meruelo-sls-20180420-story.html Three decades ago, a 23-year-old kid from Whittier, the son of Cuban immigrants, had an idea for a new kind of pizzeria — one that would serve predominantly Latino neighborhoods and offer then-uncommon toppings like chorizo and jalapeños. He took over a failed pizza joint in Huntington Park, called it La Pizza Loca and, within five years, had more than two dozen locations and sales of nearly $10 million… …Alan X. Reay, president of hotel brokerage and advisory firm Atlas Hospitality, said it’s a near-certainty that Meruelo paid substantially less for the SLS than Nazarian and his primary investor, Stockbridge Capital, spent just on renovating the property. “He’s obviously a very smart, savvy investor,” Reay said. “From a timing standpoint, he seems to have made a very good business of buying right. It doesn’t matter how strong the market is — if you don’t buy it right, not much else matters.” Still, turning around the SLS will be a task…

Los Angeles Times 04/19/18 Welcome to L.A.’s Luxury Hotel Boom, Featuring $20,000 Suites and James Bond Exotic Cars By Hugo Martin http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-five-star-hotels-20180419-story.html   At the newest five-star hotel around Los Angeles, a massive bronze chandelier hangs from its nearly three-story Art Deco lobby, suffused with the scent of fresh-cut roses. Upstairs, each room is fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows that open to balconies with views of Santa Monica Bay on one side and the Hollywood sign on the other. Each guest is pampered too, assigned a personal concierge to pick up dry cleaning, book dinner reservations and snag tickets to the Dodgers or, if preferred, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Welcome to the five-star Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, a $200-million hotel that opened last year amid a worldwide boom of high-end hospitality construction that has benefited Los Angeles. During the Great Recession, developers put a hold on such ultra-luxury hotels, opting instead to build budget inns or overhaul mid-scale lodgings. But now that the economy is thriving and travel demand is at record levels, luxury is back. “L.A. is becoming the place to be again,” said hotelier Beny Alagem, who built the 12-story Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills and owns the neighboring…

San Francisco Business Times 04/11/18 New Owner of Iconic Nob Hill Hotel Proposes Adding Rooms, Amenity Space By Katie Burke https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/04/11/intercontinental-igh-mark-hopkins-nob-hill-sf.html One of San Francisco’s largest hotels wants to make major changes with plans to add rooms and amenities. The new owners of the InterContinental Mark Hopkins have proposed demolishing a portion of the 383-room property that’s now used as office space to make room for new guest suites and indoor wellness facilities. If approved, the office annex fronting Pine Street would be replaced as part of plans to “update the hotel as a first-class destination atop Nob Hill,” according to a preliminary proposal filed with the city. The proposal for 999 California St. was filed about a year after the property traded hands for nearly $206 million. Hong Kong-based investor Leadwell Global Properties bought the hotel early last year from affiliates of Woodridge Capital Partners. Woodridge paid $120 million for the hotel in early 2014. Rooms at the hotel now range from $259 to $459 per night, according to San Francisco Business Times research. Along with additional rooms, the overhaul would include a new roof terrace next to the hotel’s ballroom, piggybacking off the increasing popularity of rooftop venues…

Bisnow 03/27/18 Hospitable Housing: Motels Are Being Repurposed to Support the Homeless Population By Joseph Pimentel https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/affordable-housing/turning-motels-into-homes-for-the-homeless-86613 Legend has it in the mid-1970s two young computer programmers, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, stayed at a New Mexico motel where they came up with a little-known computer program called Microsoft that would later change the world. The two men would move out and eventually become multibillionaires, but The Sundowner Motel along Albuquerque’s Historic Route 66 fell into disrepair. In the coming decades, the motel attracted vagrants, crime and prostitution until another visionary turned the property around. In 2014, New Life Homes CEO John Bloomfield turned the dilapidated 110-room motel into a 71-unit mixed-use affordable housing development with 3,400 SF of commercial space. “When we came in, it was a big mess,” Bloomfield said. “Now, it’s one of our success stories.” The Sundowner is one of many motels nationwide that has been converted into affordable housing over the years, and the trend is gaining momentum. In Orange County, Newport Beach-based affordable housing builder Community Development Partners recently opened The Orchard, a 72-unit development for chronic homeless individuals in Santa Ana. Other cities nationwide are continuing to either look into converting or creating…