[HN Gopher] Owner of SF's Largest Hotel Is Walking Away Surrende...
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Owner of SF's Largest Hotel Is Walking Away Surrendering It to
Lender
Author : jc_811
Score : 17 points
Date : 2023-06-15 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sfist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sfist.com)
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I really liked that hotel and conference center too.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Interesting -- my company had a yearly conference at that
| hotel, and it was miserable. They finally moved it this year to
| the Marriott on Mission and it was much more comfortable
| (especially wandering around to nearby venues).
| greggsy wrote:
| "previously robust convention schedule, which meant lower vacancy
| rates throughout the year and higher-than-average room rates."
|
| They also mention changes in demand due to return to office
| arrangements, but I wonder how much of this is truly all covid-
| related. Have the recent slowdowns in Silicon Valley also
| affected SF? Could it also be that the hotel is a bit crummy?
| kelnos wrote:
| Good questions, I wonder as well.
|
| The article mentions SF had one of the highest hotel occupancy
| rates in the country back in 2015, at 84%. In 2022, it had
| recovered back up to 62%. I wasn't sure what is more
| normal/average. Looks like in January of this year, NYC's rate
| was 66%[0], and I would think that being comparable to NYC on a
| metric like this would be cause for some optimism.
|
| So I'm assuming that they were forecasting _worse_ occupancy
| for the rest of 2023 and beyond, as 62% doesn 't sound that
| bad, at least for pandemic-exit times?
|
| Regarding return-to-office, and SF resisting it more than most
| places, I suspect a significant-enough chunk of hotel bookings
| comes from employees visiting HQ from remote or satellite
| offices. If companies are reducing their office presence in SF,
| I would expect those sorts of visits to decline.
|
| Not sure about the quality of the hotel itself; last time I was
| in there was for a work-related event back in 2015 or so, but I
| only saw conference rooms and common areas (which were a little
| dated, but clean and seemingly well-maintained), not the hotel
| rooms themselves.
|
| [0] https://www.costar.com/article/1532005238/new-york-hotels-
| be...
| treeman79 wrote:
| Easy solution. Start arresting people that steal, shoot it drugs
| in public, Etc.
|
| Keep them in jail for a long time if they keep doing it.
| chrisbolt wrote:
| Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237319
| iaw wrote:
| > The two hotels, as appraised in 2016 for the current loan, were
| worth a combined $1.56 billion. So it's a significant move that
| Park Hotels would walk away from debt that is less than half that
| amount -- and as one analyst tells the Business Times, "it says
| that they are not optimistic that the business travel or
| convention and meetings business is going to return soon to
| downtown San Francisco."
|
| $1.56B marked down to $275M (the value of the loan)... Things may
| be getting real bloody in commercial real estate.
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(page generated 2023-06-15 23:03 UTC)