Source:
http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/sotherly-hotels-inc-announces-doubletree-by-hiltonr-flag-for-jacksonville-hotel-20140828-00666 (http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/sotherly-hotels-inc-announces-doubletree-by-hiltonr-flag-for-jacksonville-hotel-20140828-00666)
QuoteSoTHERLY Hotels Inc. Announces DoubleTree by Hilton(R) Flag for Jacksonville Hotel
By GlobeNewswire, August 28, 2014, 01:57:00 PM EDT
Vote up AAA
WILLIAMSBURG, Va., Aug. 28, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SoTHERLY Hotels Inc.(Nasdaq:SOHO)(the "Company") announced today that it has entered into a 10-year franchise agreement with Hilton Worldwide to rebrand its Jacksonville, Florida hotel as the DoubleTree by Hilton Jacksonville Riverfront. The Company currently operates the hotel under IHG's Crowne Plaza brand.
The conversion is scheduled to take place on September 1, 2015, subject to the completion of certain product improvement requirements. The hotel is currently undergoing an extensive $5.0 million renovation which commenced in early 2014 and is scheduled for completion in the third quarter 2015.
The 292-room hotel sits on the south bank of the St. Johns River, amidst downtown Jacksonville'sSan Marco Historic District. The property features 12,000 square feet of meeting space, a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, and outdoor pool overlooking the city's Riverwalk.
Drew Sims, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented, "We are pleased to again partner with Hilton Worldwide in converting our Jacksonville asset to its DoubleTree by Hilton brand. We believe that the brand change, coupled with a freshly renovated product offering, will help drive both top line revenue and bottom line profits for our shareholders."
AboutSoTHERLY Hotels Inc.
SoTHERLY Hotels Inc. is a self-managed and self-administered lodging REIT focused on the acquisition, renovation, upbranding and repositioning of upscale and upper upscale full-service hotels in the Southern United States. Currently, the Company's portfolio consists of investments in twelve hotel properties, eleven of which are wholly-owned and comprise 2,698 rooms. The Company also has a 25.0 percent interest in the Crowne Plaza Hollywood Beach Resort. Most of the Company's properties operate under the Hilton Worldwide, InterContinental Hotels Group and Starwood Hotels and Resorts brands. SoTHERLY Hotels Inc. was organized in 2004 and is headquartered in Williamsburg, Virginia. For more information, please visit www.sotherlyhotels.com.
CONTACT: Scott KucinskiSoTHERLY Hotels Inc.410 West Francis StreetWilliamsburg, Virginia 23185
(757) 229-5648
Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/sotherly-hotels-inc-announces-doubletree-by-hiltonr-flag-for-jacksonville-hotel-20140828-00666#ixzz3BnUIOCqb
Well aint that something. Changed from the Hilton, to Crowne Plaza, and now the Double Tree By Hilton ;D
Quote from: duvaldude08 on August 29, 2014, 12:23:11 PM
Well aint that something. Changed from the Hilton, to Crowne Plaza, and now the Double Tree By Hilton ;D
Going back further, it opened as a Sheraton, then became a Hilton in around 1980 when the new Sheraton (now the Wyndham) opened. Then it lost its Hilton flag, then struggled along as the creatively named Jacksonville Hotel On The River (yes, really), until SoTHERLY's predecessor converted it to a Hilton again in about 1997.
This is good news. Hilton is developing quite a presence on the Southbank. Unfortunately for Jacksonville, there is no flagship Hilton or Marriott in the downtown area.
^^^Arguably the worst major hotel market in the country. No convention/tourism business. Not a lot of general trade/commerce that brings in outsiders to the degree people in larger cities spend x% of work time traveling (i.e. between NYC and Chicago or SF and LA or Boston and DC or Miami and Atlanta, etc). Overbuilt market for what it is. No drivers. Super tough...
There's not a full Hilton in the city at all, is there? There used to be two - the downtown one and the one on the airport property.
Sheraton was not present in the city for a while either, until it came back with the hotel by Town Center.
Marriott has the hotel by 95 and JTB, and I guess it was the theoretical flag for the hotel Bucky Clarkson wanted to put by the convention center in the late 90s, but the incentives went to the Adam's Mark that is now Hyatt instead.
Quote from: simms3 on August 29, 2014, 03:46:19 PM
^^^Arguably the worst major hotel market in the country.
dude...enough!
Jax has more downtown hotel rooms than both Orlando and Tampa.
^come on, don't spoil good hyperbole with mere evidence.
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 29, 2014, 10:15:05 PM
Quote from: simms3 on August 29, 2014, 03:46:19 PM
^^^Arguably the worst major hotel market in the country.
dude...enough!
Jax has more downtown hotel rooms than both Orlando and Tampa.
I don't think Orlando or Tampa has ever had to borrow a fleet of cruise ships to act as temporary hotels, for any of the largest events they've ever hosted (and I was in attendance for Super Bowl 43 in Tampa).
By the numbers, I suppose you could be correct (very hard to see for the common folk) but the numbers don't back up the reality of how lacking hotel/convention space is for our downtown.
^ that's correct...because Tampa's stadium isn't downtown and they spread the attendees out over the whole region.
Note that I never said Tampa and Orlando aren't better or larger hotel markets (that isn't even a question)....but neither has the density of hotel rooms downtown.
Orlando's rapid growth really didn't start until after the opening of Disney in 1971. So its downtown has always been pretty small for a metro its size. Despite the Bay Area's size, the population is roughly split on both sides of the Bay (St. Pete has a decent sized DT too). Thus, Tampa's downtown is closer in size to Jax's than St. Louis'.
I know this isn't apples to apples but I just spent the weekend going back and forth between the Marriott Marquis, Hyatt Regency, Westin and Hilton in Atlanta and man talk about some nice convention space and all of these hotels where only a few blocks from each other. I was able to actually walk from the Marriott to the Hyatt through connected tunnels and never hit the streets. I cant really say we have anything even close to that caliber of experience.
That's one of the first things I noticed about most other major cities. The airborne walkways that connect everything.
Above-ground walkways in the middle of a city seem a bit 1970s to me.
It wouldn't bother me to see them incorporated between main destinations. Parador garage to Landing / Suntrust / Omni, Other garages to Hayden Burns / Wells Fargo, etc. The weather can be quite brutal downtown.
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 29, 2014, 10:15:05 PM
Quote from: simms3 on August 29, 2014, 03:46:19 PM
^^^Arguably the worst major hotel market in the country.
dude...enough!
Jax has more downtown hotel rooms than both Orlando and Tampa.
Having more rooms within an incongruous local definition for "downtown" doesn't really make a market "better". My new firm is intimately involved in hotels, from brand creation & management to ground up development to complete repositioning/re-branding/flagging to simple ownership, and so I am learning a lot about hospitality. It's definitely an interesting industry/business concept, when looking at an individual hotel, let alone a portfolio of hotels under one ownership or a market where several owners have 1 or more hotels.
With that said, the evidence that Jacksonville's hotel market is overbuilt for its own drivers and/or size is the fact that owners can't seem to keep flags or specific brands within those flags for very long, and the simple fact that so many prominent area hotels have foreclosed or had to be recapitalized x amount of times over the last decade or so.
ADR is dismal, with no growth. Occupancy is dismal, with no growth.
I have consistently argued on MJ for years now that growing our convention/tourism business would be beneficial not only to the city and the business community, but also to the hospitality industry and owners in the area.
I would have used the $30M from the bed tax that went to NFL scoreboards for something related to CVB. But that's just me. Most cities view a bed tax as something to be used to pull in outsiders, not to make residents happy. Which is why it's a "bed tax"...not a property tax. It's a tax paid for by visitors, and should really be for visitors. And bringing in more visitors and making them happy actually benefits residents, too.
Jacksonville's downtown hotel market being overbuilt is one of the reasons I believe if we're going to invest in a new convention center, it needs to be adjacent to the Hyatt. We have the land available next to a convention center style hotel that we've also subsidized. Anyplace else is going to require a new hotel in an already overcrowded market, for it to be remotely competitive in the industry.
^^^Good point, something you've harped on for a while now.
Quote from: jaxjaguar on September 02, 2014, 03:19:37 PM
It wouldn't bother me to see them incorporated between main destinations. Parador garage to Landing / Suntrust / Omni, Other garages to Hayden Burns / Wells Fargo, etc. The weather can be quite brutal downtown.
It is believed that these walkways take pedestrians off the street and reduces street-level pedestrian activity. Don't know if that theory is 100% sound but it is the reason why urban planners have shied away from such design.
^^^John Portman's original intent for all of those skywalks was precisely that! Original pictures of the interiors of Peachtree Center (all those buildings) indicated a lively, "futuristic" interior atmosphere. But like the Jax Landing, that idea of keeping people inside did not work out so well.
Jax is *not* a city that needs those skywalks, like Minneapolis does.
Houston has all those underground walkways which effectively do the same thing. Keeps retail "down there" and people off the streets. Houston does *not* need those heated/cooled underground malls/paths like Toronto does.
Quote from: simms3 on September 02, 2014, 06:30:01 PM
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 29, 2014, 10:15:05 PM
Quote from: simms3 on August 29, 2014, 03:46:19 PM
^^^Arguably the worst major hotel market in the country.
dude...enough!
Jax has more downtown hotel rooms than both Orlando and Tampa.
Having more rooms within an incongruous local definition for "downtown" doesn't really make a market "better". My new firm is intimately involved in hotels, from brand creation & management to ground up development to complete repositioning/re-branding/flagging to simple ownership, and so I am learning a lot about hospitality. It's definitely an interesting industry/business concept, when looking at an individual hotel, let alone a portfolio of hotels under one ownership or a market where several owners have 1 or more hotels.
With that said, the evidence that Jacksonville's hotel market is overbuilt for its own drivers and/or size is the fact that owners can't seem to keep flags or specific brands within those flags for very long, and the simple fact that so many prominent area hotels have foreclosed or had to be recapitalized x amount of times over the last decade or so.
ADR is dismal, with no growth. Occupancy is dismal, with no growth.
I have consistently argued on MJ for years now that growing our convention/tourism business would be beneficial not only to the city and the business community, but also to the hospitality industry and owners in the area.
I would have used the $30M from the bed tax that went to NFL scoreboards for something related to CVB. But that's just me. Most cities view a bed tax as something to be used to pull in outsiders, not to make residents happy. Which is why it's a "bed tax"...not a property tax. It's a tax paid for by visitors, and should really be for visitors. And bringing in more visitors and making them happy actually benefits residents, too.
+1
Simply replace "conventions" with "sports events" and spending the bed tax money has the same result. Filling in hotel rooms for people coming in for sports, monster trucks, concerts, etc.
Many towns have convention centers, very few have NFL caliber sports venues that can be multi purposed.
Not to mention the Suns and Sharks are playoff caliber teams which have draw, albeit small. Based on the emails and conferences I've seen with the Jags recently they aren't joking about hosting events 300+ days out of the year. Expect to hear some good things in the coming weeks. I can say that the movie nights are a go and should be starting within a month. I imagine with all of the scoreboard hype people, will be coming from far and wide just for that. There are already 2 movies planned for the near future...
Quote from: jaxjaguar on September 03, 2014, 10:14:27 AM
I can say that the movie nights are a go and should be starting within a month. I imagine with all of the scoreboard hype people, will be coming from far and wide just for that. There are already 2 movies planned for the near future...
Can you say any more? I'm interesting in this, especially with the weather going to cool down soon.
The first one is scheduled for September 9th, but is limited to season ticket holders. There will be public ones after that, but the dates haven't been announced.
I can certainly vouch for the fact that the visuals and sound (scoreboards, ribbon boards, improved speaker system) worked quite well for the Carrie Underwood concert. Really raises the entertainment value of the stadium as an open-air entertainment facility.
Quote from: jaxjaguar on September 03, 2014, 11:01:09 AM
The first one is scheduled for September 9th, but is limited to season ticket holders. There will be public ones after that, but the dates haven't been announced.
I'm a season ticket holder, but i haven't heard anything about this. Where can I find the info?
Check your email for the Jags365 Newsletters. It's listed under upcoming events.
Did anyone notice the new paint job is nearly complete. The building looks pretty slick now. Much better than just solid beige. It'll be even better looking when the new signage is up!
Can't wait to see it!
Anyone have a cell photo they can share?
A bit of a delayed response to the request for photos...but the Downtown Vision blog did a write up on the changes and there are several photos of the renovation.
http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/2015/10/21/dtjax-skyline-now-home-to-hilton/ (http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/2015/10/21/dtjax-skyline-now-home-to-hilton/)
(http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-02-at-4.59.04-PM.png)
(http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_0795.jpg)
(http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-02-at-5.04.22-PM-1024x680.png)
(http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jr-Suite-Full_LR.jpg)
(http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-02-at-5.05.31-PM-1024x679.png)
nice rendering.... I also wish we had a hotel with a little more of a modern look like the W... that would be great.... one day maybe...
They really did a nice job with this renovation. Nice to have another Hilton brand downtown.