Memphis-based Fairwood Capital LLC has purchased the Royal Park Hotel in downtown Rochester. The hotel is located at 600 E. University Dr. and will be run by Pivot Hotels & Resorts, the same company that manages the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. The hotel has 142 rooms and more that 20,000 spare feet of event and meeting space, as well as the Park 600 restaurant.
Speculation among community residents runs rampant as the new owners of the blighted Sugar Loaf ski lodge complex make good on their promise. A fence rims the demolition site that is now the staging area for work crews who are crushing the remaining asphalt and making topsoil runs up to the top of what was once the ski hill. Residents are curious about what’s next, but anyone who is in the know isn’t talking. The property was purchased in late 2021 by SPV 45 LLC who said it would remove the blighted buildings and clean up the property. A real estate advisor for the owners recently attended the annual meeting for townhouse owners who asked many questions. Unfortunately, they didn’t get any answers about the future.
Evicted tenants who have become hotel residents are about to have their federal aid come to an end. They called on city officials for help finding affordable housing before the federal aid runs out. More than 275 Detroit households have used federal aid through the federal American Rescue Plan to pay for hotels following eviction. The tenants had been informed that the aid would be cut off on June 1. Of the 88 households currently living in hotels and supported by the aid, 40 have received an extension on their end date to June 30. The other 48 already had later end dates.
The Detroit Center for Innovation will include an Equinox hotel. The hotel will be designed to host visiting sports teams and will include gyms and a special floor for them to work out. The entire project will encompass a 300-acre district of residential, office, education and entertainment. The center will include a University of Michigan graduate campus. Ross and Ilitch, the muscle behind the project, believe it will attract companies and make local graduates want to stay in the state.
Stephen Ross and the Ilitch organization have released conceptual renderings showing new retail, housing and office developments in Detroit’s sports venue district. The projects include new construction, as well as reuse of existing buildings. The renderings show a future hotel on Henry Street, an office tower with ground-floor retail space along Woodward Avenue next to Comerica Park, a residential, retail and office development on Park Street, and office, retail and residential development along Columbia Street. Ross and Ilitch are collaborating on the University of Michigan’s planned Detroit Center for Innovation. They expect to break ground on the project in 2023.
The David Whitney Building will soon be renovated and rebranded. It will become an Autograph Collection hotel and expand to 160 rooms. According The Roxbury Group, the building will lose 24 of the apartments but leave 80 residences on the top seven floors. The hotel rooms will be renovated, along with the lobby bar, atrium lounge and outdoor seating. The building’s event space will become restaurant space. Renovations will being this summer. The project’s budget is undisclosed.
KSL Capital Partners purchased Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel more than two years ago and is expanding its Mackinac Island footprint. It now owns Bicycle Street Inn and Suites, a collection of 3 boutique hotels on Main Street. They also hold Waterfront North and Waterfront South and the restaurant, Winchester’s Whiskey and Bourbon Room.
The Westin Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit is under a pending deal. Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group, the same company that broke ground on a new Godfrey Hotel in Corktown, is buying the 453-room hotel. Downtown Detroit hotels took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Book Cadillac has been delinquent on its mortgage since spring 2020. With the sale, Oxford Capital will assume $77 million in debt to prevent the hotel from going into foreclosure. The company will spend at least $16.5 million on renovations and maintenance. It’s seeking a 12-year Commercial Redevelopment tax break that’s valued at over $26 million.