Marriott has filed an interesting lawsuit against the owners of what was supposed to become a franchised Marriott hotel, after the owners instead decided to turn the property into a migrant shelter.
Continue reading: Marriott Sues Hotel For Becoming Migrant Shelter
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We were looking at this a while back. Buying a foreclosed hotel, putting very little CapEx into the property and operating it as a shelter with guaranteed occupancy. The risk is, how long can you guarantee the contracts and what’s the exit. The only way it works if you have a demo and redevelopment plan afterwards.
On top of any termination clause, I think the lawsuit could also be for damages since they had Marriott branding on the building but were not paying Marriott for the use of the brand. On top of that, the optics of housing migrants at a building with Marriott branding in this political environment could also be damaging to the brand
“At this point, more than one in five hotels in New York City are shelters, and nearly half of hotels around JFK Airport are shelters.”
Wow! Almost makes me want to vote red. Almost.
Looks like they are doing what London has done with its central London shelters (hotels) and moving them to the suburbs including LHR with 3 currently out of action and re purposed.
You mean The Patels took the Money over prestige and recognition? If it is more than a Dollar they will do it every time. Looks like the mentality of Being Slum Lords and running Run Down Hotels in cities like S.F., NJ, Chicago never left them. Their customers always have been the Hookers, Drug Dealers and they pay CASH!
That would make you a bigot. And a fool because you are leaving others to reap the benefits of doing business.
And then the other hotels are more expensive for actual tourists cos theres less availability.
Yeah, zero sympathy for hotels in the financial district charging 300 a night at weekends lol
I assume as part of the. Contract there were also restrictions on their exclusive area that prevented Marriot from partnering with other owners
I don’t understand why Marriott would allow a franchisee to open a duo Aloft–Element property. I know duo properties are a trend as it allows an owner to operate two distinct hotels with one staff and one set of resources like laundry, etc, but normally you see an extended-stay brand paired with a full-service brand or a low-end limited-service brand paired with an extended-stay brand. Aloft and Element are the legacy Starwood equivalents to Moxy and Courtyard, except Element (at least in Starwood days) had Westin bedding. I don’t believe Element has become an extended-stay brand.
NYC... the armpit of America!
NYC... New York City politicians that are the definition of dumb and dumber.
Paying $55 to over $300 a night per room for drug addicts, hookers and drug pushers... aka NYC residents.
NYC... the armpit of America!
There are at least 3 or 4 hotels in Denver that have become homeless shelters or illegal immigrant shelters in the last 4 years. From Moxy or Aloft (I forget which) to Holiday Inn and Doubletree. Owners are stuck with an older property and a brand requiring renovations, etc. Easier to end the franchise contract and get a guaranteed revenue stream from the government for 365 nights a year.
Legacy Starwood had geographic exclusivity, but I don't believe legacy Marriott or post-merger Marriott has done this. It's my understanding there were some legacy Starwood owners who sued or threatened to sue Marriott for breaking their geographic exclusivity. I remember the case of the Thailand resorts.
I live down the street from these two properties. You can still see the Marriott signs on the building as they are currently being partially covered by a large black trash bag looking thing. I wish these were hotels as the Aloft appears to have a rooftop bar with would be nice for an otherwise underdeveloped neighborhood.
Some of the absurd insane NYC pricing may be due to Airb&B crackdowns
To me most of the jfk airport properties remind me of homeless shelters or nursing homes which I believe they were at some point
There are only a few elements in the US. Element initially was supposed to be an eco-fosued brand - since the merger, Marriott has steered it into more of an eco-friendly extended stay brand. You can see this as Marriott is listing it as a "longer stay" brand here:
https://www.marriott.com/marriott-brands/explore-our-brands.mi
Marriott will want to hang on to the franchise agreements to these hotels as it is very difficult to get new hotel deals approved in NYC now as they require City Council approval. Going back to the drawing board will mean much longer delays.
"You think voting Red would change this?"
This part. Republicans have had multiple administrations post War and post Civil Rights, where immigration became such a factor. If they were going to do anything helpful or lasting about immigration, would've done so already. Instead, they use it as a campaign and wedge issue.
Don't know what you'd think voting for them, "almost!" or otherwise, is going to change.
How bad does it have to get before people stop voting people in power who allow our cities to turn into 3rd world neighborhoods? They voted for this! The liberal politicians promised “sanctuary cities” and now the people complain. Politicians allow “no bail, catch and release.” Crime skyrockets. Duh! Then…the liberal voters move to nice Red states because of low crime and low taxes. Yet the liberal voter never learns and continues to vote blue, creating the mess they escaped. Locusts. Fungus. (Fill in the blank with the worst disease you can think of). Please stay in the mess you voted for! Suffer the consequences liberal voters.
In travel, we consider the doctrine of force-majeure. In this cc saw, something is outbid control of the company and they are off the hook for liability. The issue garre is that the migrant situation does have the status if crisis and a looser interpretation of a breach of contract applies. An Aloft in Chandigarh left Marriott and they kept much of the branding. This is their right and it’s not a registered trademark in it of itself. Where the owner is wrong is in not mitigating the challenges presented by taking off the Marriott name and expecting to be a part of the system while not paying the related management fees. They can’t have it both ways. But simply because they left the system and Marriott wasn’t happy….I’m not so sure. What about an enforcement of the breach of contract if the owner goes to another chain after they stop being a shelter?
The issue is that it became a migrant shelter. There was a case in California (I think it was) where there was a property that is part hotel and part apartments. The apartment residents protested against the hotel being open for the homeless during the pandemic. They would lower their property values and not maintain the furniture and hotel stuff. I do not think this is something that Marriott wants to be associated with and I might have violated their agreement. It also shows a low standard for the hotel owners to accept such migrants. Some are probably very responsible for maintaining what is not theirs but not others.
It's not force majeure. The government didn't force them to be a shelter.
And I'm sure the Aloft branding is a registered trademark.
Also, just because you left, doesn't mean you didn't breach any contracts.
It doesn't matter who you vote. The past two terms have said it all.
Either would rather send $50-100 billion for weapons to fight a proxy war on a different continent.
Imagine the shelter size you can build with that money.
Not all of them. And certainly not every room. I've stayed at an Element. It had a microwave, sink and refrigerator. That's hardly a kitchen.
Not sure what you mean…past 2 terms. Trump was very diplomatic with our enemies including Putin. Russia didn’t dare invade while Trump was president. The minute Biden becomes president, Russia invades, North Korea starts testing long range missiles again, China threatens Taiwan and Hamas commits atrocities against Israel. Now Iran is preparing to attack Israel because they now have the money to do it, thanks to the Democrats. It’s ok. Vote for Trump and tell everyone you voted for incompetent Harris and communist Walz. I don’t even like Trump! But he’s clearly the better of the two.
Neutering Russia as a threat to Europe for the cost of $100 billion in old equipment that was just collecting dust in warehouses is a steal, considering the alternative is telling both Russia and China that they're free to invade other sovereign states with impunity. That's literally how WWII started.
With regards to the migrant issue, the solution is to actually spend the money on more immigration personnel so that asylum claims don't take years to process and reduce the need in the first place for these shelters. I realize Rs are allergic to spending money on anything other than gas subsidies, agriculture subsidies, and billionaire tax cuts though.
This. Fact of the matter is R's love illegals because some of their main donors, the agriculture and meat-packing industries, can put them to work for cheap under the table. That they get to use it as a political cudgel against the Democrats is just a nice bonus.
You clearly do like Trump quit lying to yourself.
He did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to secure the border despite his haughty claims to do so.
Also you are right, stop voting for Republicans if you actually want something done with the border. There was an entire bill planned and agreed to early this year, but it was blocked by Trump the nominee who wants to take credit for doing nothing.