Hotel Law Blog

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
30 May 2008

Hospitality Attorneys on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels."). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels -- which are free to all conference attendees -- we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is the presentation from Gary Golla of SERA.

Gary Golla is an Architect and Associate with SERA Architects in Portland, Oregon. SERA is a 90-person employee-owned Architecture, Planning, and Interiors firm with a special focus on sustainable design and development. Gary has 14 years of experience in architecture, much of it focused on hospitality design. His portfolio includes over 2,000 built guestrooms ranging from a 900-room convention center hotel to a 50-room ski resort. Gary is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional and has several LEED registered projects in design and construction. Among those is a 331-room Starwood Luxury Collection Hotel and a 256-room Courtyard by Marriott, both designed with the goal of LEED Silver. Gary Golla can be reached at (503) 445-7361 or garyg@serapdx.com.

Continue reading "JMBM's Hospitality Attorneys with case studies of the compelling economics of Green Hotel Development by Gary Golla of SERA" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
28 May 2008

Hospitality lawyer on the real world cost of going green. "Cost" is the first and biggest excuse developers give for not getting LEED certification or beyond. Yet here is an actual case study of a real world project where the client actually saved several million dollars by building to the LEED Platinum standard! In this case, the magnitude of the savings was enhanced by special credits and incentives available from the State of Oregon, but Kip Richardson says there would still have been net savings of over $1 million without Oregon's special benefits.

How can this be? Why wouldn't everyone build a high performance LEED-certified building if they could save money? Is this just a matter of education or of dispelling old myths left over from first generation technologies now surpassed by second and third generation technologies? Here are some insights from a true leader in the field: Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects. Kip can be reached at (503) 892-7138 or kipr@amaa.com.

Continue reading "The Mirabella -- Hotel attorneys with a real world project where client saved by going LEED Platinum" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
27 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels."). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels -- which are free to all conference attendees -- we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations!

Here is the complete presentation at The Hotel Developers Conference from Lynn. N. Simon, AIA, LEED AP, President, Simon & Associates, Inc. based in San Francisco, California. She has more than 18 years of experience in green building and helps clients attain LEED certification and sustainability. A California-licensed architect, Lynn has served on the Board of Directors of several building industry organizations, including the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for six years. She is a LEED® Faculty member, a LEED® Accredited Professional, and a Certified Green Building Professional. Lynn can be reached at 415-908-3757 or lynn@greenbuild.com.

Continue reading "How to get LEED certification for your hotel. Hotel Attorney on GREEN hotel development: The green consultant's perspective." »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
26 May 2008

Hotel Lawyer. On Thursday, June 5, 2008, The California Hotel & Lodging Association (CH&LA) partners with the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) to bring its membership a regional conference and trade show, the Southern California Hotel & Lodging Conference.

Continue reading "CH&LA and AAHOA presenting June 5 Southern California hotel educational event and trade show" »

Posted In: Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
25 May 2008

Going "Beyond LEED" in green hotel development. What do hospitality attorneys know about green hotel development, much less going "Beyond LEED"? Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels."). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels -- which are free to all conference attendees -- we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! (see The Hotel Developers Conference 2008 at www.jmbm.com/ghg/conferences presented by the hotel lawyers of JMBM).

Here is the full presentation from The Hotel Developers Conference 2008 of Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects -- WITH speaker notes. Kip is truly one of our "go-to" resources for green hotel development. His presentation talks about LEED -- the de facto green standard, but then goes beyond those standards into an exciting exciting new arena of Sustainable Design including current successes and development on mimicking nature. Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects. Kip can be reached at (503) 892-7138 or kipr@amaa.com.

Continue reading "Green Hotel Development -- Going "Beyond LEED" with JMBM's hotel attorneys" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
21 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels."). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels -- which are free to all conference attendees -- we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is Stefan Mühle's slideshow on two successful case studies of developing and converting LEED-certified hotels.

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer with successful case studies on green hotel development and renovation - The Orchards" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
20 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels."). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels -- which are free to all conference attendees -- we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them for your benefit, or will publish them here shortly. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is Howard Wolff's slide show on Demystifying LEED.

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer on Green Hotel Development - Demystifying LEED" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
20 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer on California Hotel Transactions. Our friends at Atlas Hospitality are one of the dominant hotel brokerage operations focused exclusively on California hotel properties. At JMBM's recent Meet the Money®, Tim Edgar, Senior Vice President of Atlas, gave conference attendees an update on "A Transactional View of Hotel Values" in California. Some of the numbers were surprising, and here is Tim's full presentation.

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer: What's going on in the buy-sell of California hotel transactions?" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
19 May 2008

Hospitality lawyer with ENERGY STAR and other green hotel resources from the EPA. At the recent Hotel Developers Conference presented by JMBM's hotel lawyers, there were many valuable presentations. (See the rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for "Topics" and then click on "Green Hotels.").

The EPA wants to bring its ENERGY STAR resources to the hotel industry and offers a number of ways to partner for energy savings. Stuart Brodsky, gave all the delegates attending JMBM's recent annual Hotel Developers Conference a lot of great resource materials that demonstrate the environmental and financial value of energy efficiency in new construction and existing buildings. Here they are for your library.

Continue reading "Green hospitality attorneys present EPA's Energy Star and other great resources for greening your hotel operations or development" »

Posted In: Green Hotels, Hotel Developers Conference™

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
18 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer on innovations in the conceptualization and design of hotels. Meet the Money® -- the annual hotel conference presented by JMBM's hospitality attorneys and their Global Hospitality Group -- recently concluded its 18th annual hotel finance convocation. About 400 industry leaders gathered in Las Vegas to hear from hotel industry experts what is happening in our industry, and what is going to happen.

There were great presentations on recent industry data (Smith Travel Research and PKF Consulting), likely scenarios and sentiment for our near future (CBRE and LIIC), an analysis of major hotel transactions (HVS) and trends in hotel cap rates and values (Mellen), and much more as reported earlier here on www.HotelLawBlog.com). But in terms of the future, one of the most interesting presentations was the Hotel of Tomorrow or H.O.T. presented by Ron Swidler, President of Bon Aller, LLC (rswidler@bonaller.com or (612) 284-4747).

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer on the Hotel of Tomorrow" »

Posted In: Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
17 May 2008

Hospitality Lawyer from Meet the Money®. For the past 5 years, JMBM's annual hotel conference has been privileged to premier the annual survey of the hotel industry's preeminent thinkers on major issues affecting hotel investment opportunities and challenges for the coming year. Here it is again, providing valuable insight on what industry leaders think. And like consumer confidence surveys, or other measures of sentiment within an industry, these gems are more important as indications of what may drive decisions in the coming months than as actual predictions of future outcomes . . . although we often become what we think.

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer on Sentiment of the Hotel Industry" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
13 May 2008

Here is another one of the great industry leader presentations from our recent Meet the Money® program, giving us perspectives on where we've been and where we're going.

It is one of the most popular presentations here on www.HotelLawBlog.com. It is by Suzanne R. Mellen CRE MAI, Managing Director, HVS. (smellen@hvs.com or (415) 268-0351). You may also want to view earlier commentary on parts of this presentation provided by me or Suzanne. Click here to see the first article on Major Hotel Transactions, and here to see the second article on Hotel Cap Rates.)

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on State of the Hospitality Industry. Suzanne Mellen's HVS presentation at JMBM's Meet the Money® 2008" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
13 May 2008

Here is the presentation from Daniel H. Lesser, MAI, CRE, CHA, Senior Managing Director-Industry Leader of CB Richard Ellis, Inc. (daniel.lesser@cbre.com or (212) 207-6064) at JMBM's recent Meet the Money® conference. This was JMBM's 18th annual hotel conference. Dan insists that "the glass is half full."

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on State of the Hospitality Industry. Dan Lesser's CBRE presentation at JMBM's Meet the Money® 2008" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
13 May 2008

Here is the presentation from Mark Woodworth, President, PKF Hospitality Research (mark.woodworth@pkfc.com or (404) 842-1150 x222) at JMBM's recent Meet the Money® conference. This was JMBM's 18th annual hotel conference. I always look forward to the research and insights that Mark brings with his presentations.

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on State of the Hospitality Industry. Mark Woodworth's PKF Consulting Hospitality Research presentation at JMBM's Meet the Money® 2008" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
13 May 2008

Here is the presentation from Bobby Bowers of Smith Travel Research. (bobby@smithtravelresearch.com or (615) 824-8664) at JMBM's recent Meet the Money® conference. This is an excellent overview of where the hospitality industry has been and where we are going.

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on State of the Hospitality Industry. Bobby Bowers' Smith Travel Research presentation at JMBM's Meet the Money® 2008" »

Posted In: Hotel Mixed-Use, Meet the Money®

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
12 May 2008

Hotel Cap Rates are changing. What are hotel cap rates? What do the changes mean for your hotel buy or sell, hotel financing or refinancing, or next visit from the FDIC? What is the relationship between cap rates and equity return expectations?

What is happening to hotel cap rates? How does that affect every hotel buyer or seller, hotel investor or lender and analyst?

Meet the Money® -- the annual hotel conference presented by JMBM's hotel attorneys and their Global Hospitality Group -- has just concluded another successful hotel finance conference with about 400 industry leaders gathered in Las Vegas to hear from hotel industry experts what is happening in our industry, and what is going to happen. Suzanne Mellen, Managing Director of HVS' San Francisco office is one of the experts I look to in this area (smellen@hvs.com), and she gave us some great information that I want to share with you today.

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on Hotel Cap Rates. What's happening to hotel cap rates, values and financing?" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
9 May 2008

Hotel Attorney at Meet the Money® -- Report on Major Hotel Transactions by Suzanne R. Mellen, MAI, CRE, Managing Director of HVS, San Franciso. We always get the latest updates on the State of the Hotel Industry at Meet the Money® -- JMBM's annual hotel conference which just concluded its 18th annual edition. And one of my favorite updates is the one that Suzanne Mellen of HVS gives us on major hotel transactions.

Here is the very latest . . .

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney at Meet the Money® -- Report on Major Hotel Transactions by Suzanne Mellen of HVS" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
8 May 2008

Hotel Attorney at JMBM's Hotel Finance Conference: mood of the industry and where we go from here. It is May 8, 2008. JMBM's 18th annual hotel conference, Meet the Money® 2008 wrapped up this afternoon, and more than 100 of the industry leaders have just shared their latest experiences and outlooks for the remainder of 2008 and beyond.

There is a consensus to the mood of these hotel financing sources and industry leaders. While we have spent two information-packed days getting the details, and nuances of this, here is the overview.

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney with Hotel Financing Experts at Meet the Money® 2008" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
7 May 2008

Hotel Attorney at JMBM's 18th Annual Hotel Finance Conference: Hotel Industry's "Think Tank" gives views on "Top 10 Issues". Continuing a tradition of many years, the hotel industry's "Think Tank" released its view on the LIIC Top 10 Issues for the industry.

Here's what it said . . .

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney at Hotel Finance Conference: Hotel Industry's "Think Tank" gives views on "Top 10 Issues"" »

Posted In: Meet the Money®, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
6 May 2008

Hotel Attorney in Las Vegas, Nevada. Financing a new hotel transaction? Refinancing a hotel mortgage? Looking for hotel debt or equity to buy or develop a hotel or resort? If you are serious about any of these, then you are probably going to be at the Opening Reception tonight for the eighteenth annual Meet the Money® Conference -- the gateway of hotel finance.

As JMBM's hotel attorneys gather with about 400 hotel industry leaders to kick off one of the biggest hotel financing events of the year, excitement is in the air. Starting with a not-to-be-missed networking reception tonight at The Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas, for the next two days, hotel finance will take center stage.

Stay tuned for updates from Meet the Money® 2008 as we start with our first full day tomorrow morning, May 7. (or check out the Conference web site at www.MeetTheMoney.com).

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney in Las Vegas for Hotel Financing Conclave: Meet the Money® 2008 (www.MeetTheMoney.com)" »

Posted In: Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Meet the Money®

The Hotel RFP Process: 5 Factors that determine what your RFP looks like.
16 Steps to a successful RFP Process
By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
1 May 2008

Hotel Attorney on Hotel Management Agreements. How to get the right brand and operator for your hotel project . . . and a deal you can live with -- The Hotel RFP Process.

In the last few articles here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, I have been sharing some of the important lessons our hotel attorneys in the JMBM Global Hospitality Group® have learned about hotel management agreements over more than $50 billion of hotel transactions, involving more than 1,000 properties. While it may be an exaggeration to say that "JMBM wrote the book on hotel management agreements," we certainly know the area and have at least written a few chapters in that book.

In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we covered:

* How the terms of your hotel management agreement can easily raise or lower the nominal value of your hotel by 25% or more

* The 5 biggest mistakes owners make in pursuing hotel management agreements (and how to avoid them)

* What's a Hotel RFP and what shapes it.

In case you missed our earlier discussion, please see "How to get the right hotel operator - part 1" and "How to get the right hotel operator - part 2." You will find it with some other great Hotel Management Agreement resources under the topic by that name here at www.HotelLawBlog.com.

Let's return now to the Hotel RFP process ...

Continue reading "Hotel Attorney on Hotel Management Agreements. How to get the right hotel operator: part 3" »

Posted In: Hotel Management Agreements