Comment on Kurt (see below for details and context):
Kurt Schoenhoff, who recently started hospitality and retail advisory firm Verticore Commercial, represented MJM Group in the transactions.
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A Raleigh hotel developer that’s under construction on two hotels in the Steele Creek area and recently launched a hospitality lending software application is “seriously considering” moving both companies to Charlotte.
Anuj Mittal, president and CEO of MJM Group, said his company will deliver by year’s end a 118-room Steele Creek Courtyard by Marriott in front of the Charlotte Premium Outlets and a 139-room City Park Aloft Hotel by Starwood at the City Park development off Tyvola Road. MJM Group has delivered several hotels in suburban Charlotte, including the City Park Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn and Suites, the Northlake Residence Inn and Courtyard by Marriott, and the Steele Creek Residence Inn, which opened last week.
“We think the growth is really happening starting from Steele Creek all the way to the airport,” Mittal said, adding the infrastructure investments at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, connectivity of nearby interstates 485 and 77, and office development have all created demand for hotel rooms.
The Steele Creek Courtyard will include a heated outdoor swimming pool, meeting space and additional lobby square footage than earlier hotels, reflecting trends of travelers today, Mittal said. The hotel is being developed on a site bounded by Shopton Road, Dixie River Road, Style Lane and Outlets Boulevard.
“(This hotel) will be the latest generation prototype design by Marriott,” he continued. “We find now that guests are more and more wanting to stay and work and socialize in the lobby areas.”
Mittal said Charlotte’s hotel market has only become tighter as supply has been added in this cycle, making new deals challenging. He added MJM has become more selective about where to develop new hotels as a result but said the BB&T and SunTrust merger, which will bring another bank headquarters to Charlotte, has his company considering an uptown hotel project.
Labor shortages and construction costs continue to affect all commercial real estate sectors, and hotels are no exception. To address a lack of available labor, many hospitality developers have turned to modular construction in new projects, which means having certain rooms — or, in some cases, entire hotels — built in an offsite warehouse and shipped in.
All of the bathrooms at the Steele Creek Courtyard by Marriott hotel are being manufactured offsite, Mittal said. He continued, saying design and construction firms that MJM Group works with are considering completely modular hotels for future hotels.
Nevertheless, the cost to build hotels today is double what it was a few years ago — at the same time, room rates have not increased enough to offset those increases, Mittal said.
The City Park Aloft has an estimated cost of about $30 million and the Steele Creek Courtyard by Marriott about $25 million. MJM Group last year paid $1.3 million for the 3.3-acre site near the outlets, according to Mecklenburg County real estate records.
Kurt Schoenhoff, who recently started hospitality and retail advisory firm Verticore Commercial, represented MJM Group in the transactions. Chris Thomas at Childress Klein represented the seller in the Steele Creek Courtyard transaction. Gray Design Group is the architect for both the Courtyard and Aloft hotels. Barringer Construction is the general contractor on the Courtyard project and Cleveland Construction on the Aloft. Stimmel is the engineer on both projects.
Separately, Mittal recently started a tech company, CrediVia, which develops a platform that connects hotel borrowers and lenders. The software is intended to digitize the lending process, with features like a standard loan application, one-time data entry, centralized file storage and loan analytics. CrediVia’s advisory board includes executives currently or formerly with Genworth Mortgage Insurance, Home BancShares and Lenovo, among others.
CrediVia participated in a Queen City Fintech conference held a few months ago and only formally launched very recently, Mittal said. Before starting MJM Group in 2004, Mittal worked as a lender and felt the process was cumbersome for both sides of the deal.
“We’ve taken a lot of pieces of the process and digitized them so the information exchange between the lender and the borrower can be handled in a smoother and streamlined fashion,” he said.
Because of Charlotte’s existing fintech sector and the number of hotel developments MJM is doing locally, Mittal is thinking about relocating both MJM Group and CrediVia to be headquartered here instead of Raleigh. Mittal currently keeps a small local office in Matthews.
