The locally based developer, operating with a 10-month construction schedule, will put the 118-key hotel on a three-acre tract in the 100 block of East Kaliste Saloom and Pinhook roads. "The site we've got to put the Staybridge on is in the heart of the business district," says Sy Simpson, regional director of franchise sales for Atlanta-based InterContinental Hotels Group.
Robert Radomski, vice president of InterContinental's extended-stay brand, adds that the driver for the site selection is Lafayette's oil and gas market, with names like Houston-based ConocoPhillips and San Ramon, CA-headquartered Chevron Corp. and its Unocal Corp. to feed demand. "It's a Who's Who of the oil and gas arena. There's a lot of development interest in Lafayette, not just hotels," he tells GlobeSt.com. The Staybridge site also is just 1.5 miles from the airport and University of Louisiana campus.
The O'Brien Group will raise a Staybridge Suites' standard prototype. Fifty percent of the 118 keys will be studio units; 40%, one bedroom; and 10%, two-bedroom, two-bath suites. The average daily room rate varies by location, but the Staybridge brand was generating $105.40 ADR system-wide at the end of the third quarter for the hotelier.
The only other Staybridge Suites in the state is located in Downtown New Orleans. However, there are signed license agreements ready to go for Baton Rouge, West Monroe and Shreveport, according to Simpson and Radomski. The Staybridge brand has 118 hotels open and 143 in its pipeline, with at least 30 currently under construction.
InterContinental also has three other franchised brands either ready to break ground or open in the Greater Lafayette area. In four to six months, work will start on an 81-room Holiday Inn Express along the western end of Kaliste Saloom. In nine to 12 months, work will ramp up on a full-service 100-key Holiday Inn along US Hwy. 90 in Broussard. An 83-room Candlewood Suites will be opening in a couple months along Ambassador Caffrey Parkway, where a 76-key Holiday Inn Express also is on the drawing board for the thoroughfare. And for several years, a Holiday Inn flag has been flying in nearby Scott, LA.
"The whole Gulf Zone area as really been under intense negotiations," Simpson says. He estimates about half of the hotel projects have been able to earn some "Go Zone" funding from the Louisiana rebuilding coffer.
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