Hotel Law Blog

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
9 July 2007

Hotel Lawyer on eco-friendly hotel financing in Hollywood California. Today, JMBM issued a press release announcing that its Global Hospitality Group® closed the senior debt portion of the capital stack on one of the largest single hotel mixed-use projects in the country -- and one bound to be a "Green" project at that! The complex construction loan transaction was for JMBM client, HSH Nordbank AG, a leading credit institution headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and particularly renowned for very large construction loans on luxury hotel projects. [For JMBM's current hotel financing resources, please click here. (www.MeetTheMoney.com) and for other conferences, click here (www.jmbm.com/ghg/conferences).

This is a significant transaction for several reasons.

Continue reading "Hotel Lawyer -- Eco-friendly lifestyle hotel mixed use project closes financing" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Green Hotels, Hotel Finance − Hotel Debt & Hotel Equity , Hotel Mixed-Use, Lifestyle Hotels

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
3 January 2007

Hotel Lawyer -- Top Picks of 2006. Yes, 2006 has been a record year for many in the hospitality industry, and for the hotel lawyers at Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro LLP. As we have already given our Outlook for 2007, we thought it might be interesting to look back on our Top Pick articles from 2006 from www.HotelLawBlog.com.

The Top Picks articles are organized by the major TOPICS on the Blog. We generally tried to select just the top two or three articles for each TOPIC. It was a major struggle to decide where to make the cutoff. If you want more information on a particular TOPIC, you can go to www.HotelLawBlog.com, and search for all articles on that TOPIC. To do that, just scroll down the right hand side, and below the (free) subscription and RSS Feed buttons is the Browse search engine that enables you to sort by TOPIC (or date, or key words, etc.).

Here they are . . .

Continue reading "Hotel Lawyer -- Top Picks for 2006" »

Posted In: ADA, Condo Hotels, Disasters, Hotel Management Agreements, Hotel Mixed-Use, International Hotel Investment, Labor & Employment, Land Use & Entitlements, Outlook and Trends, Workouts, Bankruptcies & Receiverships

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
12 December 2006

Hospitality Lawyer on the power of hotel brands. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet. But does a Trump by any other name sell out as fast? Does a Four Seasons by any other name get a $3.7 billion bid from Bill Gates and the Prince?

What's a brand? It is not always so easy to determine. Yesterday, I talked about how Donald Trump is more than "just" a very successful developer. He has developed a powerful BRAND with legs." But are all brands the same? Should they be? What makes a successful brand -- for an owner or developer?

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer on hotel brands -- How far will the pendulum swing? What's in a name? Just ask Starwood, Hilton . . . Coca-Cola or Procter & Gamble" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Management Agreements, Hotel Mixed-Use, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
11 December 2006

Hospitality Lawyer Baja Mexico. He's done it again if you believe the AP Wire reports. On Saturday, December 9, 2007, the Associated Press reported that, "Donald Trump's new luxury hotel-condominiums on Mexico's booming Baja California coast registered about $122 million in sales Friday, potentially heralding a resurgent development boom along the Pacific shoreline, just south of the U.S. border."

I've noted in prior postings that Baja is red hot, and that Trump has become a brand. So what is noteworthy about this latest development?

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer Baja Mexico -- So what's a brand? How did Trump get into this conversation? " »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use, International Hotel Investment, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
5 December 2006

Condo Hotel Lawyer: In my last two postings on www.HotlelLawBlog.com, I have been reviewing where the condo hotel phenomenon is today and where its going, and what drives success in condo hotel projects. While there are a lot of reasons that condo hotels make sense and have an enduring legacy, the wildfire that has been burning in the U.S. for the past 5 years is now pulsing out in all directions. What has caused the condo hotel craze to spread to Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, China, India and the Middle East? And why is anyone looking to emulate the state of the art developed over the past 5 years in the U.S.?

Continue reading "Condo Hotel Lawyer -- What is fanning the condo hotel wild fire in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, China, India and the Middle East?" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use, International Hotel Investment

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
4 December 2006

Condo Hotel Lawyer Las Vegas. As I reported yesterday in my www.HotlelLawBlog.com, the big crowd at IMN's condo hotel symposium in Las Vegas last week -- more than 550 people -- was impressive with a lot of the top players. The symposium delegates included a lot of experienced developers, looking to start their first condo hotel project, or looking to take hotel-enhanced mixed-use to the next level. If you missed my "Las Vegas Report from IMN Condo Hotel Conference," please start there. Today, we move on to explore what makes a condo hotel project successful.

Continue reading "Condo Hotel Lawyer -- Las Vegas Report: What drives successful sellouts today?" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use, Outlook and Trends

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
3 December 2006

Condo Hotel Lawyer Las Vegas. The Condo Hotel Symposium just ended was a good show. I have to hand it to IMN -- more than 550 people gathered to hear insights from the industry's leaders and experts on this increasingly important technology. They may also account for a big surge in traffic at www.HotlelLawBlog.com as more people have come to study the wealth of free information on Condo Hotels (scroll down the right hand side and select articles by Topic). If anything, the conference confirmed all my observations made on November 28, as I was heading to Las Vegas (see, "Condo Hotel Lawyer -- What in the world is going on with condo hotels now?"), but I have some potentially interesting refinements and further observations inspired by the meeting.

Here are the highlights of these further ruminations . . .

Continue reading "Condo Hotel Lawyer -- Las Vegas Report from IMN Condo Hotel Conference" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
28 November 2006

Condo Hotel Lawyer Las Vegas. On November 30, 2006, I will be participating in the first two opening general sessions of IMN's Symposium on Financing, Developing and Operating Condo Hotels at the Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada. This will be an interesting opportunity to compare notes and take the current pulse of the industry. Is the bloom off the rose? Can condo hotel deals still be done? Where is the opportunity now? How do you capture it? What are the pitfalls? How do you make a condo hotel deal work today?

Why are more than 550 people coming to a condo hotel symposium in late 2006??? Obviously there is a huge continuing interest in the condo hotel phenomenon, but is the model sustainable in the current environment? Unless there are unique features, great sponsorship and market validation? Where are we? What is happening?

Continue reading "Condo Hotel Lawyer -- What in the world is going on with condo hotels now?" »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
12 November 2006

Hotel Lawyer on How to have a blow out of hotel-enhanced residential mixed-use. Donald Trump seems to find himself surrounded by controversy -- whether it involves his giant kiosk in Chicago, his huge American Flag at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach or his big "hole" in Manhattan's Soho. But whatever you think of the man, you have to be impressed by the latest demonstration of his brand power at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Waikiki. According to the story by Allison Schaefers in Saturday's Honolulu Star Bulletin, Trump and his Los Angeles-based partner, Irongate, set a new world record for residential development sales -- selling more than $700 million of luxury units in just 8 hours, and selling out all 464 hotel suites and residences in the first day of what had been planned as a two-day sales event.

The Trump-Irongate sell out surpassed what is claimed to be the prior record established by Intrawest last December when it sold $425 million, comprising 318 units, of the first phase of hits Maui resort development. What does this mean?

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer -- Trump's luxury residential mixed-use project in Hawaii sells out in 8 hours. New sales record claimed. " »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use

By Jim Butler, Hotel Lawyer | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
12 November 2006

Condo Hotel Lawyer on "in lieu taxes." On November 7, 2006, the voters did more than put the Democrats in power in Washington, D.C. In Indian Wells, a wealthy desert resort community near Palm Springs, California, a 82.48% landslide vote approved Indian Wells Measure P -- a condo hotel tax. Some think that the Indian Wells measure will serve as a model tax for the country. Others just fear it will stifle development and spread nationwide like a virus.

Continue reading "Hospitality Lawyer -- New model for Condo Hotel regulation? In lieu taxes? " »

Posted In: Condo Hotels, Hotel Mixed-Use