In The News...
Hilton Set For 48-Story Hotel-Condo in Buckhead
$250 million project will be open by 2009
The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionWalter Woods and Leon Stafford
August 18th, 2006
It's a Hilton in Buckhead, just not Nikki or Paris.
A team of developers plans to build a 48-story hotel near the Buckhead MARTA station that would be the first new Hilton in the city of Atlanta in 31 years.
The Peachtree Road tower, to break ground next year and open by 2009, is designed as 300 rooms topped by 192 condominiums.
Sandcastle Resorts & Hotels, which owns and operates large Hiltons in Destin, Fla., and Alexandria, Va., would build the hotel. Atlanta condo developer Wood Partners would develop the residential units, said Fred Alias, an Atlanta-based partner at Sandcastle.
The $250 million project, to rise on the corner of Peachtree and Stratford roads overlooking GA. 400, will feature rooms with 10-foot ceilings, a 6-story stone facade and a luxury restaurant and spa., Alias said. "In my opinion this will be the nicest Hilton hotel in the U.S., bar none," he said.
Hilton has been unable to build hotels in the city for decades because it had an exclusivity agreement with the owners of the Hilton Atlanta downtown, Alias said. That agreement recently expired.
The Sandcastle team is under contract with local developer Ackerman & Co. to buy 1.5 acres of the Peachtree-Stratford corner for the Hilton tower. The developers have an option to buy 2 more acres in the future.
Ackerman & Co. has owned much of the 5-acre site for about 20 years. Some of the corner is home to Buckhead's Second Church of Christ, Scientist building., which would be demolished for the project.
As part of the deal, Ackerman would build a smaller four-story condo and retail project in front of the hotel tower.
The Hilton announcement comes as hotel occupancy in Atlanta an upswing that started in 2005, hospitality officials said Thursday.
After sustaining a four-year slump following the tech bubble burst in 2000 and exacerbated by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, city hotels began filling up last year when business travelers and conventioneers began returning.
Occupancy has been even better this year with the addition of leisure travelers who have flocked to Atlanta to visit the Georgia Aquarium. Atlanta hoteliers also benefited when several big conventions and many smaller meetings relocated to the city from New Orleans after Hurican Katrina.
Buckhead hotel occupancy was up 11.3 percent in June and 7.6 percent for the year, according to Tennessee-based Smith Travel Research. Nationally, occupancy was up just 2.1 percent.
Mark Woodworth, executive vice president of PKF Consulting, an Atlanta firm that tracks the health of the hotel industry, said with the occupancy level rising in the norther part of the city, it was natural Hilton would want to be there.
"Hilton has been noticeably absent from the Buckhead market", Woodworth said. "A Hilton in Buckhead makes a lot of sense."
The new Hilton would be the latest tower to mix hotels and condos.
The Hilton would be built next to the 42-story Mansion on Peachtree, an upscale condo and hotel project on the other corner of Stratford and Peachtree. The Mansion features 127 hotel rooms, operated by Dallas-based Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, and 45 residential units. It's to open in January 2008.
Condo-hotel developments have become popular with baby boomers who are downsizing but who seek a high standard of living that also allows them flexibility, said Ken Bernhardt, a professor of marketing at Georgia State University. Bernhardt is also a member of the board of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, the city's main convention and tourism organization.
"While giving up space, they don't want to give up amenities, and the condo-on-top-of-a-hotel enable them to take advantage of room service, workout facilities, maid service and a concierge without leaving the building," Bernhardt said. "Many want to travel to exotic places or to visit grandkids, and the ability to lock up and leave the same way you can leave a hotel is very appealing."
Buckhead Coalition President Sam Massell said the latest announcement of a luxury condo and hotel high-rise for the Peachtree corridor is "exciting, but it's not surprising."
He said it will be the sixth new $1 million-plus condo project in the works for the area. "Midtown and downtown and Perimeter, none of hem can point to anything like that," said Massell, who lives in a townhouse on Peachtree.
The former Atlanta mayor predicted that developers will have no trouble selling pricey condos, even in a housing market that has turned soft across the nation.
"The demand is there," Massell said. "The developers know it..."
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