KIMPTON HOTEL & RESTAURANT GROUP LLC
CEO: Michael Depatie.
Revenue: $687 million in 2010; $574 million in 2009.
No. of local employees: Approximately 250.
Headquarters: San Francisco.
Year founded: 1981.
Company description: Owns and operates 53 boutique hotels and 53 restaurants in 23 cities.
Key factors for success: Company touts upscale amenities, ecological practices, cultural ties to local communities.
San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC has followed up on its $49 million purchase of the former Se San Diego hotel by renaming it Hotel Palomar San Diego, updating its interior designs and rebooting its in-house restaurant, among other changes.
The moves are the latest in a recent series of local developments impacting the industry category known as boutique properties — trendy, upscale hotels, usually with 100 to 250 rooms, that seek to make their mark with young and hip locals as much as with tourists.
General Manager Mark Van Cooney said the 183-room hotel at 1047 Fifth Ave., just north of Broadway, is the eighth U.S. hotel to carry Kimpton’s Palomar banner. It is also the second downtown hotel for Kimpton, which also owns the 235-room Hotel Solamar, located less than a mile to the south in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Cultural Connections
Operators say the Palomar brand generally conveys the feel of a stylish “urban retreat,” and the San Diego hotel’s programs and interior designs will maintain close ties to the local arts and cultural community, which in turn will play into the guest experience.
For instance, Van Cooney said Hotel Palomar will be partnering with cultural organizations, starting with a collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The hotel will offer custom-tailored room packages that include tickets to the museum.
The property’s new restaurant, known as Saltbox Dining and Drinking, opened its doors Sept. 23, led by executive chef Simon Dolinky and featuring American gastropub fare. Operators changed out some of the artwork and textural design elements throughout the property, and reconfigured the front lobby area.
“It’s been designed to look more like a living room than a hotel lobby,” Van Cooney said.
He said the privately held Kimpton is not disclosing its investment in the transformation of the hotel, which it purchased earlier this year out of the bankruptcy process of its prior owner, Fifth Avenue Partners LLC, which opened the property in late 2008 as the national economy was cratering.
Van Cooney said the new owners will be able to make a success of the property through its nationwide reservation system and other marketing programs that tout Kimpton’s 53 U.S. hotels. Rather than competing with Hotel Solamar, he said the two properties will allow Kimpton to market itself more effectively in San Diego.
The company continues to scout ownership and management opportunities in the San Diego County market. In June, Kimpton announced it had taken over management of the 108-room Hotel La Jolla, after it was hired by the property’s new majority owner, an affiliate of Westport Capital Partners LLC of Connecticut.
This year has seen ownership changes for other trendy and relatively new hotels in the downtown area.
Chesapeake Lodging Trust of Maryland announced in June that it had acquired the 210-room Hotel Indigo, in the East Village, for $55.5 million. Also earlier this year, Boston-based Rockpoint Group purchased the 258-room W Hotel, which went into foreclosure in 2010, for $56 million.
According to Smith Travel Research Inc., boutique hotels in San Diego County had a 73.8 percent occupancy rate for the first eight months of 2011, up 5.3 percent from the same period a year ago.
Jan Freitag, Smith Travel’s vice president of global development, said U.S. boutique hotels have seen demand and rates hold up relatively well, since their target market is luxury-oriented travelers and local visitors who have been less impacted by the economic downturn than other consumers.