Any job worth its salt can be frustrating at times.
This one’s no different. Here’s a perfect example.
After our scoop on a hotel being put into the historical Boyle Building in downtown Little Rock, I was attempting to nail down a hot rumor.
That led me to call Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and have a conversation with a media person.
The point-blank question: Is the hotel that’s going in downtown Little Rock an Aloft?
Exact, unequivocal response:
“Yes. It is.”
A brief conversation followed in which the media rep got vague and said she’d check with Starwood (sheis a contractor) and get right back.
She didn’t. Not that day. Not the next, when we placed another call to her and left a voice message. And another. And another.
Chi Hotel Group spokesman Jacob Chi said in the breaking story that contractual obligations prevented him from revealing the plan just yet.
But Mayor Mark Stodola at least revealed for that March 11 story that the plan is for a hotel. This paper reported on Friday that the building sold for $4.6 million, another piece of the picture.
The hostelry could be another Marriott or a Hilton, which have built or planned five hotels in downtown since 2004. Whatever the brand, it will bring the total to about 750 new rooms since then.
Why does it matter what the brand is, as long as it is a good one? Well, you might notwant some brands if you want to keep your downtown on the upswing.
But, really, why does it matter when the news gets out about the brand? If you don’t know the answer to that, you are not familiar with this column.
It would seem that the Aloft concept was in the works all along in the four-building Main Street Lofts, which will come on line soon. But it wasn’t.
The 68 units, as the name implies, are high-ceiling, urban, industrial.
Some might say the Aloft concept would be an inspired choice.
Michael “Doc” Terry, professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, said the Aloft style - spare and modern - targets the younger traveler.
“It sound likes a perfect fit” with the Main Street Lofts, Terry said.
Terry recently did a feasibility study for a New York investment group that wanted to buy an old, eight-story hotelin Orlando.
“I suggested two or three concepts, one of them being the Aloft,” which the investors selected.
It opened in December, Terry said.
“It’s a cute little concept. The Aloft is very different from anything else you have in Little Rock, I assure you,” Terry said. “It’s edgy. The rooms are very flexible. There is a false wall in the middle of the room which is open on both ends, which allows freer movement. It’s very efficient. So is the rest of the hotel.”
“It’s definitely [for] young people, but it’s not economy,” Terry said. He called it “upscale Ikea.”
The McKibbon Hotel Group of Gainesville, Ga., proposed in 2008 building a seven-storyAloft at President Clinton and River Market avenues, but objections were raised because its height exceeded the buildings in the River Market Design Overlay District and it was not built.
Instead, the three-story Arcade building, with no hotel, was erected in that spot. It opened late last year.
When the big downtown players - the Little Rock Marriott (formerly the Peabody, of course) and the Doubletree are thrown into the mix, the number of rooms in what reasonably defines downtown is more than 1,300.
Are we talking saturation? The answer is you’ll know when it happens. As Terry said earlier, if the occupancy rate for the latest arrival in the market is “south of 60” percent after a few years, the downtown is overbuilt.
The annual occupancy average for seven downtown properties for 2013 was 66.8 percent, according to Smith Travel Research. For the city as a whole, with 66 properties, it was 56.5 percent. That 10 percentagepoint difference reflects the comparative attractiveness of downtown, one that investors continue to bank on.
If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or email him at [email protected]
Business, Pages 65 on 03/23/2014