"Venezuelans turn lingering 14-story Brickell tower into hotel," Miami

WEEK OF THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2011
SERVING SOUTH FLORIDA’S MOST IMPORTANT AUDIENCE
Venezuelans turn lingering 14-story Brickell tower into hotel
Photo by Sergio Alsina
Antonio Herrera of HES Group, Pedro Villar of Sunview Cos. and Francisco Arocha of HES at the
site of the partially finished building. A rendering of planned hotel is at right.
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
A Venezuelan investment group is leading the transformation of a condominium
project into a 160-unit Starwood-brand
hotel in the Brickell area.
The site at Southwest Second Avenue
and 10th Street, near the Mary Brickell
Village shopping complex, was planned as
a multi-family project with 88 units, but
changes in market conditions pushed the
developer to pursue a new direction.
The HES Group, made up of Venezuelan
investors, partnered with Developer Pedro
Villar, owner of Sunview Cos., to take the
14-story structure from a residential building to a hotel.
“We split the units into more units and
converted it into a hotel of 160 units
because of the market situation,” said Mr.
Villar, who has been a developer in South
Florida more than 30 years. “The values on
residential were so low, it was not logical to
do that type of construction.”
The $23 million development paused
while the developer got needed City of
Miami approvals for the conversion,
said Francisco Arocha, managing partner of HES Group.
Construction should resume in a couple
of weeks, Mr. Villar said, once the city
completes remaining inspections.
Under the Aloft brand, the hotel is to
encompass 160 rooms and suites, with six
levels of parking and amenities such as a
restaurant, bar, pool and gym.
“This is going to be a great [hotel] alternative for businesspeople doing business in
Miami,” Mr. Arocha said.
The hotel’s bar, w xyz, is Aloft’s signature trendy bar and is to cater to business
travelers and Brickellites.
Room rates at Brickell’s Aloft Hotel are
to start at $120 to $140 per night, Mr. Villar
added, serving primarily business travelers.
The project is expected to take about
eight months to build and should open in
the first quarter of next year.
A competing hotel currently rising near
Brickell is the 221-room Hampton Inn &
Suites, costing about $36 million to build.
The 15-story hotel at 50 SW 12th St.,
which includes a five-story garage atop, is
being developed by Brickell Hotel Group,
with Bernard Wolfson, president of
Hospitality Operations, as the developer’s
general partner.
The Hampton Inn & Suites, which is
also looking to attract business travelers, is
expected to open in September.
Brickell already houses several high-end
hotels, including Four Seasons, Conrad, JW
Marriott and Mandarin Oriental, that cater
to affluent travelers.
Brickell’s Aloft Hotel is to be the first
under Starwood Hotels’ new flag to open in
South Florida. Aloft is a more-affordable
but still stylish hotel concept born from the
success of the W brand.
Starwood
Hotels
&
Resorts
Worldwide owns hotel franchises such
as the W, Westin and Sheraton.
The company expects to expand the
Aloft brand into 100 hotels by year’s end,
Mr. Arocha said, with the first ones in
Florida already operating in Tallahassee and
Jacksonville.
Locally, another Aloft location is slated
for Doral in December. Internationally, the
brand is expanding to Bogota in November
and San Jose and Panama City in 2013,
according to Starwood Hotels’ website.
Brickell’s vibrant neighborhood was a
big reason HES Group made its first hotel
investment here.
“After the crisis, there is a new awakening in the Brickell area,” Mr. Arocha said.
“It has become an extraordinary place to live
and to do business.”
During construction, the Brickell hotel
project is to create about 180 jobs, including
subcontractors, and after it opens, hire about
50 full-timers.
HES Group, headed by Mr. Arocha and
Antonio Herrera, is an entrepreneurial group
that has been in business in Venezuela for 12
years in industries such as hotels and sports.
“After the [real estate] crisis that happened here, prices came back to attractive
levels and there was a lot of opportunity for
small groups to come and invest here,” Mr.
Arocha said.
This is the first hotel project the investment group is developing in the US, he added,
with 70% of the funds from private equity and
about 30% from financing.
In Venezuela, HES acquired, turned
around and sold Tamanaco InterContinental,
a large 550-room hotel in Caracas.
It also developed an upscale boutique
hotel in Caracas, The VIP, which the group
still has equity participation in, that opened
two months ago.
The company also acquired and launched
Tiburones, a traditional sports franchise in
Latin America.
Juan Serralles, partner in law firm Fowler
Rodriguez Valdés-Fauli, served as attorney
to this international entity, negotiating the
joint venture to build the hotel and the
agreement to check-in Starwood’s Aloft as
the hotel flag.
HES Group is eyeing other investment
opportunities in South Florida’s hotel
market, Mr. Arocha said, particularly
beachfront properties as well as locations
in major cities such as Miami, Fort
Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.