MIAMI-Atlanta-based hotel investment advisory services firm Hunter Realty has set up shop in Miami. Stephen Taylor, the firm’s newly-minted vice president, will lead the Miami office into opportunities in Florida and the Caribbean.
“We believe Florida and especially Miami, Orlando and Tampa will be hotbeds of activity over the next 24 to 36 months as the economy recovers and the debt issues facing hundreds of hotel owners finally get resolved,” says Teague Hunter, president of Hunter Realty. Teague says Taylor’s 30-plus years of hotel real estate experience as a broker, operator, developer and consultant makes him a good fit to head the Miami expansion.
Taylor comes to Hunter from HTL Hospitality Advisors, where he was managing director of the firm’s Miami brokerage and consulting business. Before entering the hotel brokerage business, Taylor was founding partner, president, and CEO of Brookshire Hotels, a nationwide full-service hotel management and development company with a portfolio of about 30 hotels.
In his new role at Hunter, Taylor smells opportunity. He points to Smith Travel Research’s Aug. 14 report that shows Miami-Dade’s occupancy rose to 74%, up from 69% a year ago. Broward’s occupancy rate rose from 60% to 63% in the same period. Meanwhile, Orlando’s hotel occupancy climbed nearly 7% in July.
“The banks are starting to get a little bit more aggressive now,” Taylor tells GlobeSt.com. “They are more willing to loosen their purse strings. I expect to see more deals in Florida, and I think the state will recover more quickly than others. There’s a big pent up demand for vacations, so Florida as a tourism destination still has an advantage.”
Miami-based Gencom, one of the largest owner/developers of luxury-branded hotel properties in the U.S., is also betting on Florida and the Caribbean. The company just completed a $1 billion recapitalization of its portfolio, which includes the 450-room The Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne Resort in Florida. Gencom is negotiating to acquire several distressed assets in the Caribbean.
“The recapitalization and restructuring of this group of luxury assets has allowed us to enhance our investment platform and to move forward with strategically focusing on growing the company’s collection of four- and five-star properties,” says Karim Alibhai, founder and principal of Gencom.
Both companies seem to be betting on tourism, at least for the short term. Although Florida’s leisure business may be trending up, group meeting business is still suffering at major hotel properties in Miami, Tampa and Orlando, according to a new report from Colliers PKF Consulting in Atlanta. The demand is increasing, but the price points are declining.
“On the corporate side, business will continue to increase at a steady level,” Scott Smith, senior vice president of Colliers PKF Consulting in Atlanta, tells GlobeSt.com. “We’ve reached the bottom in Florida, but we think it will take several years to recover to the pre-recession levels of 2007. It could be 2013 or 2014 before the Florida hotel market returns to complete health. It’s going to be a real slow go.”
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
