San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Upgrades coming to hotels near SeaWorld
Two hotels on San Antonio’s far West Side are set to undergo makeovers. Affiliates of New York-based Certares and New Orleans-based HRI Hospitality LLC bought the Hilton San Antonio Hill Country hotel last month from New Yorkbased Goldman Sachs.
It’s unclear what the buyers paid for the 226-room hotel and meeting venue at 9800 Westover Hills Blvd., which is valued by the Bexar Appraisal District at $24.5 million.
The hotel has 13 event rooms with more than 12,640 square feet of space, three outdoor pools and a restaurant.
Its rooms and public areas will “undergo comprehensive renovations,” according to an announcement. A spokesperson didn’t respond to an inquiry about the cost of improvements.
Private equity firm Certares has bought eight hotels since launching its real estate operation early last year. HRI owns or manages more than 30 properties.
“We look forward to strategically repositioning and refreshing the Hilton San Antonio,” said Michael Coolidge, chief investment and development officer at HRI.
The nearby 500-room Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa is also slated for an upgrade.
The rooms and corridor interior will undergo about $5 million of renovations beginning in August, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The sprawling resort at 9800 Hyatt Resort Drive is owned by Woodbine Development Corp., a Dallas real estate company. Woodbine did not respond to an inquiry about what the renovations will entail.
The activity at Hilton- and Hyatt-flagged properties — both within a couple of miles of SeaWorld San Antonio — comes as the local lodging industry continues to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hotels in the San Antonio metro area generated $335.3 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 108.5 percent from a year earlier and 6.3 percent from two years earlier, according to a report by local hotel consulting firm Source Strategies.
Occupancy reached 59.5 percent, up from 41.2 percent in fourth quarter 2020 and 58.5 percent in fourth quarter 2019.
Revenue per available room, a key measure of hotels’ performance, was also higher. It rose to $67.21 in the fourth quarter, up from $35.25 a year earlier and $67.07 two years earlier.
Industrial park sold
New York-based KKR & Co. last month bought Corner Ridge Crossing, a 576,047-square-foot industrial park with four buildings outside Loop 410 in northeast Bexar County.
Corner Ridge Crossing was completed in 2020, and tenants include e-commerce and food and beverage companies, commercial real estate services firm JLL said in an announcement.
JLL marketed the property on behalf of the seller, Houstonbased Hines. It’s unclear what the sale price was for the industrial park, which the Bexar Appraisal District values at $56.2 million.
The first three months of 2022 marked the sixth consecutive quarter that demand for industrial space exceeded supply, according to a report by commercial real estate services firm NAI Partners.
Net absorption — move-ins minus move-outs — totaled 5.2 million square feet in the first quarter, while construction was completed on 4 million square feet of space during the same period.
The vacancy rate was 4.2 percent in the first quarter, down from 6.2 percent a year earlier.
Group buys 3 complexes
DJE Texas Management Group recently acquired three apartment complexes — at 12221 Blanco Road, 7302 University Row and 8631 Fairhaven St. — totaling nearly 600 units.
It’s unclear what the real estate investment and management company paid for the properties, which the Bexar Appraisal District values around $47.8 million combined.
DJE plans to put $5.2 million into rebranding and improving the complexes, which will include adding washers and dryers, and upgrading pools. The bulk of the renovations are expected to be finished in 2023.
The company has invested in more than 5,000 apartments across 17 complexes.