Atlas in the news

The San Diego Union-Tribune 01/22/18 San Diego in Midst of Hotel Building Boom By Lori Weisberg http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/tourism/sd-fi-hotel-building-20180122-story.html   In the span of a year, the number of hotel rooms under construction in San Diego County doubled, outpacing all other counties in Southern California. New year-end figures released by Orange County-based Atlas Hospitality Group document a continued building boom up and down the state, with a record 10,793 hotel rooms that opened in California in 2017 and 125,749 more still in the planning stage. What is less clear is how many of those hotel projects will move forward and whether the pace of development can be sustained well into the future. Atlas CEO Alan Reay, who admits to being a little surprised by the robust pace of growth, remains bullish on development into this year and next. “I would have anticipated a little more caution, both from developers and banks but the opposite has happened,” he said. “It’s amazing to see the amount of development going on. It seems a day doesn’t go by where you don’t hear about the impact of Airbnb and yet the demand for hotels is still very strong.” In San Diego County, there are 2,823 rooms…

Los Angeles Business Journal 12/29/17 Fig Fancy Downtown hotel set to reopen after extended renovation By Caroline Anderson http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2017/dec/29/fig-fancy/   The historic Hotel Figueroa’s doors are anticipated to open for business in coming months, thanks to a renovation that will be fancier – and pricier – than originally expected. Owners of the hotel – New York-based real estate investment management firm GreenOak Real Estate and Urban Lifestyle Hotels in Beverly Hills – are about two years overdue in what was supposed to be a one-year upgrade, according to reports of the owners’ timeline when the project broke ground in November 2015. The renovation of the 1925 structure ballooned into a major overhaul with custom upgrades that were timely and expensive, according to the project’s general contractor, Shangri-LA Construction in downtown. The vision for the property changed significantly once work began, said Joe Martino, Shangri-LA’s chief operating officer, sending the project over the preliminary budget by about $16 million and costing time by adding fancy amenities, such as a custom-built pizza oven. The overall shift required 31 city permit changes, and the cost swelled to more than $60 million in construction materials and labor, according to Martino, approaching the $65 million…

The Mercury News 01/18/18 Hotel Developers Grab Site Near Downtown San Jose’s Google Village Project By George Avalos https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/18/hotel-developers-grab-site-near-downtown-san-joses-diridon-station-google-transit-village/   SAN JOSE — Realty investors have grabbed a downtown San Jose property that’s expected to be developed as a high-rise hotel, a lodging site that would sprout next to a planned Google transit village. Diridon Hospitality paid $4 million for the property at the corner of Stockton Avenue and West Julian Avenue on Jan. 16, according to Santa Clara County property records. The county records show that Diridon Hospitality, an affiliate of Dallas-based Kade Development, paid cash. The seller was the San Jose Redevelopment Agency. This deal provides a fresh sign of the Google effect that appears to be spurring a variety of development efforts in downtown San Jose. “If you look at the site right now, it does’t necessarily show itself as a hotel development property,” said Dharmesh Patel, an executive managing director for hotels with Colliers International, a commercial realty brokerage. “But with the Diridon Station project, the Google development, Trammell Crow, TMG, Adobe expansions, when all that comes to fruition, this hotel would be smack dab in the middle of that activity.” Realty investors are increasingly eyeing…

San Francisco Business Times 01/16/18 Developer Goes Micro with Plans for Pod Hotel in SoMa By Katie Burke https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/01/16/micro-hotel-development-hospitality-soma-sf-pod.html   Few hotel guests have probably had the urge to snuggle in bed and flush the toilet at the same time, but the recent spurt of new micro hotel developments in San Francisco could make that possible. A new pod hotel proposal slated for Central SoMa is just the latest one to join the party. Local developer Leon Lee submitted plans for a pod hotel at 744 Harrison St., a site at the heart of the city’s influx of new hotels. The proposed plans call for demolishing the two-story building on the site and replacing it with an eight-story building with 52 micro-rooms and nine units of market-rate group housing. According to the project’s filing, the developer is expecting to have the property open by early 2019. Last year, California set a record — opening more than 10,790 hotel rooms, according to a recent Atlas Hospitality Group report, breaking a record previously set in 2008. In the Bay Area, that included the delivery of 290 rooms between the debuts of both the Hotel Via and Proper Hotel. This year, another 670…

San Francisco Business Times 01/12/18 Cookie Dough, Queso and Delivery Robots: Here Are the Biggest Hospitality Trends of 2018 By Katie Burke https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/01/12/sf-travel-hospitality-hotel-tourism-development.html   From robot-run hotels to mocktail menus, San Francisco’s hospitality industry is bracing for some major changes in the year ahead. With technology and fast-changing customer demands expected to drive the biggest trends for 2018, hotels, restaurants and others in the business were told at San Francisco Travel Association’s market briefing that they could count on one thing: nothing. The Moscone Center renovation’s impending completion, the influx of new hotel development and a worsening worker shortage will underlie these trends as the industry moves through the year. From opening a wine bar adjacent to a higher-end restaurant to offering cold brew coffee tastings in the lobby, take a look at the slideshow for some of the biggest trends expected to hit in 2018. Andrew Freeman, a partner at restaurant and hotel consultant AF&Co., said being able to adapt to the industry’s shifting climate will be key. Whether its incorporating a delivery service into a restaurant, creating an app for hotel guests to remotely check in or cut down on menu items to focus on a more specific…

Laguna Beach Independent 01/12/18 Ex-Hotel Operator Breaks Her Silence By Andrea Adelson https://www.lagunabeachindy.com/ex-hotel-operator-breaks-silence   Responsibility for the deteriorating condition of Hotel Laguna and its abrupt closure last month lies with the Central Valley farm family that has owned the property since the ’70s, according to the hotel’s longtime former lessee, Georgia Andersen. In breaking her silence in an interview this week, Andersen expressed her frustration with E. W. Merritt Farms Inc. of Porterville, a dispute that is now the subject of a legal battle. “I’m happy to be done with that family,” said Andersen, who with her son, Stefan, in recent years ran the 68-room downtown landmark that she and her late husband Claes initially leased beginning in 1981. Andersen described more than 30 years of ongoing disputes with the landlord over who should shoulder the costs of improvements in the historic oceanfront property even as high-end rivals opened their doors. Andersen said even when bar patrons propped up umbrellas inside to fend off drips, her landlord foisted off roof repairs as her problem. The $50,000 roof replacement earned a lease extension, she said. As another example of neglect, Andersen cited an electrical panel explosion that forced the two-day relocation…

Bisnow 01/11/18 California Hotel Construction to Increase in 2018 By Jackie Bryant https://www.bisnow.com/san-diego/news/hotel/california-to-see-increase-in-hotel-construction-during-2018-83530   California’s hotel business is booming. The state set a new record in 2017 for the most hotel rooms opened in a single year, according to Atlas Hospitality Group’s 2017 California Hotel Development Survey. The 10,793 rooms that came online edged out 2008’s previous high of 10,286 rooms. California boasts 859 hotels with 125,749 reported rooms in various stages of planning, a 23% room-count increase over 2016. Los Angeles and Riverside counties led the charge, with 4,309 and 1,236 rooms opened, respectively. The 889‐room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown was the largest hotel to open in California. Los Angeles is also the leader in construction, with 5,327 rooms under construction. San Diego County is next, with 2,823. Although 2017 was a record‐breaking year for California hotel development, 2018 is on track to be even stronger despite the increase in supply. At present, there are 145 hotels with 20,693 rooms under construction. Strong occupancy levels and profit margins are combined with a highly favorable economic outlook that hinges on stock market and home-value growth, according to the report. It is expected that California will continue to attract overseas investment…

GlobeSt.com 01/10/18 Hotel Conversion Gets Construction Boost By Carrie Rossenfeld http://www.globest.com/sites/carrierossenfeld/2018/01/11/hotel-conversion-gets-construction-boost   SAN DIEGO— Developer Oram Hotels has received a $36.55-million loan for the continued renovation and development of Downtown San Diego’s historic 500 West Broadway building into an upscale, 163-room boutique hotel called the Guild San Diego. Regents Bank was the lender in the construction-loan transaction for the hotel, which is expected to be completed in Spring 2019. HFF’s debt-placement team including senior managing director Aldon Cole and managing director Scott Hall worked on behalf of Oram Hotels to secure the loan from Regents. The firm tells GlobeSt.com the 84,000-square-foot building was purchased for $14 million in 2014 out of bankruptcy, and Oram was successful in executing a purchase option with the armed forces branch of the government for the fee. The property at the time of acquisition was subject to low-income restrictions and operated as a 260-unit single-resident occupancy facility with a YMCA on the ground floor. Cole said in a prepared statement, “Oram Hotels capitalized on a great opportunity to preserve a piece of San Diego’s history while reactivating what will be one of the most unique and exciting properties Downtown has to offer.” The Guild San…

Orange County Business Journal 01/09/18 OC Hotel Development Down in 2017 By Paul Hughes http://www.ocbj.com/news/2018/jan/09/oc-hotel-development-down-2017/   Fewer and smaller hotels opened in Orange County last year, Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine said. Six hotels with 960 rooms opened in OC in 2017, a room count a little more than half of 2016’s total of 1,808 rooms at seven hotels. The per-hotel average in 2017 was 160, compared with an average 258 rooms apiece at hotels opened in 2016. 2017’s average was boosted by the year’s largest opening, the 271-room Marriott Irvine Spectrum, by Newport Beach’s R.D. Olson Development. OC has eight hotels with 1,657 rooms under construction; the uptick in average room count to 207 is thrown off a bit by the gorilla at the construction site, Westin Anaheim Resort, the 613-room Wincome Group project near Anaheim Convention Center that broke ground in September. Los Angeles and Riverside counties saw increases in new hotel rooms in 2017, year-over-year; San Diego’s new room count declined slightly. All four counties had more projects in planning—70,000 rooms at 410 hotels—at year-end than they did 12 months earlier. OC’s take of that total: 57 hotels with about 11,200 rooms.

Orange County Business Journal 12/18/17 2018 Preview: Hospitality & Tourism By Paul Hughes http://www.ocbj.com/news/2017/dec/18/2018-preview-hospitality-tourism/   What have you done for me lately? Hospitality in recent years has seen its share of hype and change, from a hot hotel market to planned fantasies and tomorrows at Orange County tourist meccas. 2018 holds the latest takes on those, from the flip side of hotel building and buying to hints of what’s coming at Disneyland Resort. Hype will become realities—if at times virtual—as promised lands from the Star Wars-themed one at Disney to the latest iterations of “technology saves the tourism world” take shape. Stories to Watch • Look for amped up teasing out of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, an increasing intensity of material from news to marginalia on Disney’s in-development attraction—and related offerings in the far-flung empire. A virtual reality experience—Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire—is scheduled to open Jan. 5 at Downtown Disney to whet fan furor; note the naming protocol—“Star Wars: [Blank Blank]”—and that the VR deal is global; other sites are Disney World and a London mall. The Star Wars planet that Galaxy’s Edge is ostensibly on got its name in mid-November—Batuu—and next year the project will get an…

The Mercury News 12/15/17 Downtown San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel to Be Sold for $250 Million By George Avalos http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/15/fairmont-hotel-in-downtown-san-jose-slated-for-250-million-sale/   SAN JOSE — The Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose is slated to sell next year for $250 million, according to one of the principal owners of the iconic lodging complex. The 805-room hotel tower is expected to be bought by Eagle Canyon Capital, a San Ramon-based firm, said Lew Wolff, a principal executive with Maritz, Wolff — a realty investment firm that is the primary owner of the high-rise hotel. “We have had the Fairmont San Jose for a long time, and we have done very well there,” Wolff said. “We have had some softer times and better times with it. It’s been a lot of fun. This hotel is an icon.” Get breaking news with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store. The Fairmont, whose 22-story tower opened in 1987, was one of the key components in a decadeslong quest by San Jose city and business leaders to bring more activity into the downtown area. Wolff and his partners bought the Fairmont in 1996, at a time when the…