hickoryhouse

too long..... sorry

I don't really know where to start here. If I pissed you off somehow then perhaps you shoulld let me know instead of this.... But I digress. I want to address a few of your points. quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] a better comparison would be what is mentioned in the article where Frisco opened a convention center and hotel and their earnings per night at surrounding hotels dropped 10 dollars per night.....again this is not the rate charger per night with more nights sold....the article states that is EARNINGS per room dropping an average of $10 per night....so that is LOSING money VS what was being made before.....sure the actual hotel attached to the convention center might be doing better than that, but the existing hotels in the area (probably paid for and run with private dollars) not relavant are losing earnings on a per room basis because on the nights that new facility is not drawing in NEW business that new facility is competiting with existing hotels for existing business /quote] I know this was not addressed to me personally but I have a bit of experience in this matter that I wanted to share with you. Years ago I worked at a very nice hotel in Downtown Dallas and for many years we were the best game around. It didn't take long until a similar property to ourselves, with more rooms and some unbelievable expanded amenities was opened. For the first 6 - 9 months we took a hit, our occupancy dropped, our rates dropped in response to that and we had to make some opperational changes as well as changes in our marketing strategy etc. My point is that after time the rates crept back up, the new place leveled off like all things will and a healthy competition emerged between the two properties. The new place forced us to step our game up a bit and in retrospect I am actually happy we had those lean months, they forced us to get better. I think that we need some clarification on a few of the terms and comparisons that you were making. You started talking about RevPAR seemed to be going off a $55 rate for the Denton Hotels (DH) and keep quoting a $145 RevPAR for the proposed Convention Center Hotel (CCH) quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] and also while it is true I listed high end properties for the most part......in your failed attempt to win even a single point you miss out on the concept that I am quoting revpar for HIGH END properties in a huge market with a large convention and business presence......and yet those single property revpars for HIGH END and very high end properties next to and very close to major convention facilities and business centers.....are still not close to being as high as what the denton property hopes to achieve which is $145 per room /quote] But as you read the article it makes no mention of RevPAR, which has been a cornerstone of your argument from the beginning. As I read the article what I hear it discussing is ADR, or Average Daily Rate, not RevPAR, Revenue Per Available Room. This makes a large difference in the conversation. quote - Article] They were skeptical that, even for what would be the city’s only full-service hotel, the projected average daily earnings of about $145 per room was realistic. Currently, Denton area hotels are earning about $55 per room. /quote] If you were to find the RevPAR for most limited service properties you would find a remakebly low number, this is ok because as you mentioned there is less overhead, less labor, less electricity less F&B costs etc. the CPOR (Cost Per Occupied Room) for a limited service property is significantly lower than for a full service property, for obvious reasons. There will of course be competition between the CCH and DH for occupancy and rate but that is to be expected and that is part of the business. You seem to want to base a large protion of your argument on RevPAR and while a very improtant statistic there are other improtant factors to concider, When I get to your RevPAR rant I will explain further. quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] how is an owner suppose to renovate a hotel that is less than three years old and why would they.....much less three of them especially when they are new and the busineess does not warrant it /quote] Renovation may not be needed for the three hoteliers that were represented in the article, how about the other 20 hoteliers that were not in the meeting and did not make time to go have their voices heard. perhaps they need a renovation? quote Article] Helm, Jariwala and Patel said that, although about 20 other hoteliers in the city didn’t come to the meeting, they knew them to be concerned about the convention center hotel, too. /quote] The other hoteliers coulnd' t make the time to attend a hearing about the future of their business, especially strange if they are in such dire times as the three represented in the article say. That seems a bit odd to me but perhaps they were busy with other items of more importance. It seems to me that if they have a chance to get their voices heard about such and crucial subject they might show up.But once again, I am getting off topic. You went on and on about how a rennovation was a rediculous thing for a 3 year old hotel and how ludicrous it is that someone would even bring up the subject... quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] how is an owner suppose to renovate a hotel that is less than three years old and why would they.....much less three of them especially when they are new and the busineess does not warrant it ....................... these people MADE THE INVESTMENT even when at least one of them knew the market was already going down fast because he had already spent so much time and money that it would have been worse to walk away.....and now your answer to that market reality is add more hotel rooms and they should renovate or invest more money.......you must be a wonderful business person and investor......for those wishing to lose a great deal of money /quote] Perhaps you forgot to finish the rest of the 1 scentence in my entire post that the topic of rennovation was broached: quote Hickoryhouse] The other hoteliers are going to have to to do what every other market is doing, rennovate, change or compete in some other way. Progress is not made by trying to be fair to those already in business. /quote] My point is that while renovation might not be an option for the three new hotels perhaps it is for the other 20 hotels not represented in this article. As I mentioned in this quote and various other times in the post new competition is not a reason to crater as a hotel, these places need to evolve, adapt, change. Look for new revenue streams, differentiate themselves from the competition. It has to be done in every business and the hotel space is no different. btw, industry standard for full service properties is to renovate every 7-9 years. It used to be every 4-6 years but many "market realities" as you put it prevent that. quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] then you go on to say that there are tons of things going on in Denton right now.....EXACTLY.....and when the new convention center opens.....the places that USED TO GET THE BUSINESS......will now lose that business to the new convention center......that is not building new business that is canabilizing business from existing businesses......which is why the USA hospitality, restaurant, retail, and property development business is a total disaster......because one thing canabilizes business from another and people like you respond with "well invest more and renovate"........yea brilliant idea ignore the fact that the actual business you are going after is in decline be it restaurant diners, the convention business, big box retailers, casino gamblers, high price condo buyers......ignore that all those clients are tapped out or having their needs more than met....just go out there and renovate or build bigger or newer and steal that business right back....then it can be the other guy that is "stagnant" with a 2 or 3 year ld hotel or convention center or strip shop or mall or casino that can eat shit....except over time it gets to the point that everyone has "new" and everyone has the sam amenities and everyone has the same size facilities.....and then you ALL eat shit because there is simply too many comparable things competiting for the same total overall business 400 new restaurants built yesterday with big name chefs running them will all go broke if they are in the market for 400 total diners.....that is just a simple fact....it does not matter if they all renovate and expand every day.....because at the end of the day only a dolt thinks that renovating and expanding and building new service industry things creates a new market and more overall business /quote] Your point here is understood but I philosophically disagree with your premise. the idea the a new place will take business away from someplace that "used to get the business" is called competition and it is healthy in most places. The reason that the city was holding hearings on the subject was figure out if they should procede or not, it isn't a free for all, the city is trying to determine if the new competition is good for the city or not. Just because the DH were already there doesn't mean that building the CCH is a bad idea either, the CCH idoes not mean that all the DH will close their doors, much to the contrary. You seem to feel that the amount of business in town is a constant, but that doesn't make sense. The new CCH brings with it new life and new businesa for the entire area, not just the CCH. Your line of vitriol directed at me addressed the idea I presented of SMERF business but you neglected to think about the ways that the new space increases this line of revenue. quote Hickoryhouse] Denton is in a good place to have a hotel convention center of this type, not to big and not to small. It is the right size for drive in conferences, weddings from all over the area, SMERF (Social, Military, Education, Religous and Fraternal) business from all over the area will be a huge target and being in Denton not the higher priced Grapevine I think it will be a huge attraction. /quote] You were right, we already do have weddings in Denton, now we have a place for nicer ones, bigger ones, out of town ones etc. We don't have much convention business though and it seems to me that a North Texas Convention Center is just the thing to bring in groups form as far north as Oklahoma and throughout all of the small towns and communities throughout North Texas. Additionally, the appeal fo being in a nice location and a a non-Grapevine price point will be appealing to many of the drive in events that I have worked with over the years. Infact you convienently neglected to mention that in the article you referenced they discuss the benefits of the Convention Center and the trends that are leading mid sized cities such as Denton to build them: quote Article] Cities that build convention centers without an attached hotel are having a much harder time in the convention business, according to Kim Phillips, vice president for the Denton Convention and Visitors Bureau. The bureau has prepared several reports for the city showing that the lack of facilities has cost the city business. From 2006 to 2012, Denton was in talks for about $20 million in convention and conference business that went elsewhere, Phillips said. In addition, there are about 2,000 expos and state association conventions each year that the bureau hasn’t even approached because there is no way to accommodate them, she said. Big cities, such as Dallas, San Francisco and New York City, are hurting from a nationwide trend that sees larger conventions saving costs by having more smaller, regional meetings. But that trend creates opportunities for cities like Denton that would never have been able to compete before, Phillips said. /quote] You say that there is no "New Business" however the CVB seems to think otherwise. Do you think that those three hoteliers that were in attendance would have liked to have had a shot at some of the $20,000,000 that went elsewhere? What about having a shot at the 200 expos and state association conventions that never even looked at Denton. There are always convention goers and wedding guests that prefer a lower cost lodging option and these guys with their new limited service properties are first in line for that "new business" and they should be excited to take a stab at any additional business that they are creative enough to drum up. Smaller regional meetings are the new trend according to the CVB, that seems like a perfect market for Denton to try to bite into and that would be entirely new business. I mention SMERF business again, I feel that will be the main attraction the the CCH, all fo that will be "new Business". SMERF (Social, Military, Education, Religous and Fraternal) represents huge potential guest and customers for all of the Denton area businesses not just the hotels. Many of these guests are on vacation and like to take in a little of the local flavor and enjoy themselves after the conference or event, at least in my experience. quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] and as for REVPAR....it is just that REVENUE PER AVAILABLE ROOM TO THE HOTEL......priceline, orbits.....none of that matters....REVPAR is the revenue per available room per night for the hotel.....that includes occupancy rates.....it takes into account fees paid to outside booking companies, it takes into account rack rate VS discounted rate.....it is the REVENUE PER ROOM....the actual money coming into the hotel that they can use to pay their bills....it is THE industry standard for calculating the profit and loss on a per roombasis of a hotel........because it takes into account occupancy, number of rooms, discounts, big nights when bookings allow for higher rates.....and nights when the hotel is empty......that is whay that number has meaning.......because it shows just what dollar amount each room produces after all the other BS is cleared out of the way /quote] Probably my favorite part of all. RevPAR describes itself in its name, and perhaps we are arguing the same point but I just can't tell. The formula for RevPAR is Revenue Per Available Room. All revenue derived from the sale of the room, and only that (no minibar, in room movies, bar tabs etc) prior to expenses is used in the calculation. This includes money obtained from 3rd party sites, groups, internet booking, walk ups... all of it. I have been in the business for many years and you are right it is ONE of the industry standards used for calculating profit and loss for a hotel. CPOR (Cost Per Occupied Rom), ADR (Average Daily Rate), NOI (Net Opperating Income), PDA (Projected Demand Analysis), LTV (Loan To Value), and REO (Real Estate Owned) are just a few of the many many many other metrics used by hotels and others when making decisions before during and during the constrution and after opening to ensure a profitable business. RevPAR is a valuable number but without context it is almost pointless. quote name='GL2Greatness' timestamp='1343069441' post='654966'] so giving this hotel all the benefits of a doubt that it will pull in $100 per night, that it can get 350 beds for 60 million (when they are saying 318 beds in the article I linked) that it can sell 50% of the rooms every night and that it can operate with extremely low overhead and employee cost and a very small profit margin and extremely low interest rates.....it is still quite a stretch to think that facility with the sole "it exist" will generate enough NEW business to the Denton hotel market to not steal business from other properties or to lower the average room rate or both /quote] Your following post discusses the financial "realities" of this new property but in your lengthy disertation, of which I thought the final paragraph concluded nicely (quoted above), is leaving out several very important factors while coming to your conclusion. First of which, you have to get past this "new Business" thing. Competition is a part of life and a part of business, the new building as I have already discussed will bring in "New Business" to Denton, it is up to the competitors in the market to determine who gets what. This has nothing to do with canabilizing business because the numbers just don't bare that out, eg $20,000000 in lost business over the past 5 years and 2,000 expos and statewide conventions that never even gave Denton a look. Additionally, you described how the money will flow in a vacuum with no changes, you forgot that business does not exist in a vacuum. Hotels subsist on additional revenue streams such as F&B, Phone, Parking, Movies, Spa treatments etc. The mere existance of these items is why you cannot judge a situation in the hotel space with merely a RevPAR number and a calculator. Dont' forget about inflation either, how about the value of the land that the buildings are sitting on? perhaps in 20 years a 2,000000 note won't look so bad. As for lowering ADR for all hotels involved, that remains to be seen, but remember my story about the new hotel that was competeing with my building? In the end what needed to happen did, the market corrected itself. The point that I want to make out of all of this is that business is not owned by someone just because they were there first. IF someone comes along and tries to steal your business then you ahve to find a way to combat that, evolve, change and grow with your business. The city of Denton needs a convention center, regional meetings are growing in popularity and low priced options such as Denton, when compared to Dallas, look to be the beneficiary that trend. there is evidence that points out that with out the hotel the convention center is more likely to fail so the city is doing something about it, or at least looking into it. Don't be afraid of change, it is inevitable and sometimes, if you work with it, it can be awesome.

I have to agree. I have spent a large amount of time in the hospitality space, primarily in hotels, and he makes some very good points. His math might be a little off however. No one is expeting this place to grow Denton demand an additional 127,000 room nights. That would be 99% occupancy year round in this hotel. What is happening though is that Denton is expanding. A building like this will attract numerous smaller conventions, local based conventions. UNT based groups etc which will all increase the demand in the area. The other hoteliers are going to have to to do what every other market is doing, rennovate, change or compete in some other way. Progress is not made by trying to be fair to those already in business. They are the reason that the market is so stagnent in Denton. GL2, your thoughts on Grapevine and other areas surrounding the airport have merrit but don't really do much to effect what is happening here in Denton. There are numerous "drive in" conventions all over this city every weekend. I have worked with the TABC officers convention, the Texas st. "Z Car" convention, thousands upon thousands of people coming in for the Texas Motor Speedway and my hotel was in Las Colinas no where near the track and that is just a few of the hundreds of groups that I have worked with over the years. The airport is a great draw for big conventions, that is not what this project is aiming at. They aren't playing the same game. This space has value, and with a good sales team it will be utilized. I don't know what you were trying to prove with your RevPAR quotes either. There are to many unknowns to draw many conclusions from those numbers. I don't know where you got your numbers and honestly, I am too lazy to try to internet research them. however you get rates like that due to 3rd party booking enginesw primarily, priceline, expedia,etc. These guys pay the hotels maybe $10 more than the CPOR of each hotel which dramatically skews this information. Many hotels, even convention hotels, can have a very large percentage of their business filled by these 3rd party guys. Heads in beds is the name of the and the big boys are not immune to that and it makes their numbers very shaky sometimes. Additionally lets look at what RevPAR actually is, Revenue per Available Room, this has nothing to do with occupancy, it is a simple formula: Total Revenue / Number of available rooms. A RevPAR of $55 might not be a bad thing, for example; Hotel A has 250 rooms Available rooms = 250*365 = 91,250 available rooms for a RevPAR to be $55 they need $5,018,750 in room revenue for the year. No where in this formula is occupancy, 3rd party bookings, F&B revenue, event revenue, minibar revenu, telephone revenue, internet revenue, parking revenue etc. My point is the RevPAR alone does not prove anything. There is so much more involved than just that. Lets assume that Hotel A has an average occ rate of 65%, not great, but not bad either for a Dallas Hotel. its average room rate would be $84.62 per night that puts it in a different category that what it seemed to me that you were trying to portray earlier. Once again, this doesn't take into account the origination of these rooms, where and how they were booked, upgrade revenue etc. But let's assume that those numbers are indicative of the overal market, that price is not what is being generated on high demand nights, from corporate backed conventions, through government rates etc. There is more to this than just RevPAR. Even smaller conventions bring in demand and the hotels in the area that step their game up a bit, advertise some and perhaps, try.........., can make some hay those days and surrounding days. Do you really think that during "ICE" at the Gaylord that they are charging $121 a night? What about The Sheraton downtown during the Margarita Ball? Those numbers are much, much higher. The numbers at surrounding hotels are much higher as well. With properly managed labor, overhead and good inventory those additional dollars stretch a long way over the leaner times of the year. There is more demand pumping into Denton at the moment anyway, the new stadium, a new conference, great bball team, thriving music scene and general growth of the city are adding to the overall demand. Those hotels that don't want to play in the new market will figure it out very quickly and will either evolve or die. Denton is in a good place to have a hotel convention center of this type, not to big and not to small. It is the right size for drive in conferences, weddings from all over the area, SMERF (Social, Military, Education, Religous and Fraternal) business from all over the area will be a huge target and being in Denton not the higher priced Grapevine I think it will be a huge attraction. it seems to me that with this project they will be taking a metaphorical cattle prod to the rest of the Denton hotel business, and if you ask me it is about time!

Love the rebounding, high flying blocks etc. But I think my favorite part of this whole thing was the Vince Carter elbowhang dunk redux but in TM's version, he palms the ball and doesnt let go... that was amazing.

The best part about what they are doing is they are stockpiling a bunch of tradable assets for the trade deadline this year thanks to those one year contracts. 8 mil for Kaman, plus all these other one year deals spell cap relief for some team that has destroyed their future. What that means for the little Mavericks is that if they are good enough to compete for a 7-8 seed then they have the trade chips to deal for a top tier player at the deadline to try and mae a run this year and even to move onto the future as the face of the franchise perhaps... And if they suck hello lottery and hello Tony Mitchell. this wasn't my ideal off season by any stretch but it looks like Cuban and Donnie might have something up their sleeves afterall.

Well of course. I hear that if you are successful somebody along the way had to give you some help, you didn't build that program TCU ... somebody else made that happen... Get with the program TCU...

Sounds like an amazing event. Needs to happen and needs to be student driven. I would love to see it but the best results of this would be if the students came our en masse to see their team throw down... Get some more pride flowing through ths place, get some people pumped about basketball season and maybe we can pack the pit a few times this season. Nothing speaks to recruits like a great atmosphere at a game and the best way for that is crazy a** students making noise!

Exactly right. We have to get past the conference being pissed at us for leaving, past the refs and past the polls. Great coach and an improving roster will be good for us this year. Lets just look back at these pre-season polls and laugh at the end of the year...

cant seem root for either team but i think thunder in 6. although i do hate the heat the most...

Maybe i am behind the times.... but I don't understand Twitter at all. What good would a #MeanGreen on the field bring us and our University? If it is something substantial I might be all for it, but I can't imagine what that might be...

What is the name if this board? goSMU.com? Unless it has at least something to do with us I don't care. Let then fight their own battles and if we want to rabbit trail about them we can do it on the I like pie forum....

Loss leader is the correct way of looking at this. I work in the food business, in sales, and I am heavily involved in daily market flucuations and these have dramatic effects on y life and my business. I would say that $.99 milk 3 years ago isn't far off from actual market price at that point in time. we saw similar prices a few times over the past few years while milk prices were skyrocketing. These were set by grocers underpricing their milk and placing it at the back of the store so that consumers would have to walk through the entire store before grabbing their milk. These prices were heavily advertised most of the time as well. Retail sales of milk is heavily subsidized by the government to help ensure that dairy nutrition is available for all, this has helped limit the astronomical rise of milk costs for everyone else. There are several reasons for this increase in prices, some of these are; drought - less water for the cows yields less milk corn - corn is a major food for dairy cows and the price of corn has grown more that the price of milk over the past few years. This is mainly due to the government mandating ethanol be used in gasoline. Corn growers have been forced to sell parts of their crops to ethanol production, the resulting reduction in the corn crop has grown the price of the grain. This has dramatically increased the price of raising not only cattle but a huge percentage of our food producing animals, chickens, eggs, pork etc. all of which use corn as a major food source. The easiest thing that we can do to help reduce the cost of food in this country is to immediately cease the mandated use of food (corn) as a way to artificially "extend" the functionality of petrochemical based fuels. When you track the recent spike in food costs it almost identically mirrors the cost of corn. Both spikes occur at the same time as the government's decision to put Thanksgiving in our gas tanks. Do your own math

Restaurants and bars should be able to make their decisions based upon the will of the owners, a state run university has no such equivalent figure. I think that this is a situation that should be put to a vote. If the smokers win then the university still has the option of creating new designated smoking areas, adding new ash trays and trash cans etc...

Yup yup...

this looks over there in the braska board really really like the guy. I have to say I'm excited about getting a big guy underneath the basket. Wanna see tony have more room to work on the outside.

but all of this waiting is killing me..... yes, I know I'm impatient.

I have to agree, best news we could have heard during this process

if our women's coaching position was a desired position what does that make our men's coaching position? Is it the desired position as well? great news on this higher. Looks like we got a heck of a coach.

I have to say I am torn... I like the SF idea, in house keeping some consistency. but Jeff Capel is very interesting too. local recruiting experience is very important in my view if this hire and both of these guys have it. but gun to my head, if Capel is an option he is my favorite.

coach, Thank you for your time, effort, endless energy and perpetual optimism. you have taken North Texas Basketball from a punchline to primetime. you have given us all amother reason to be proud and we all thank you. we will miss you, good luck at LSU, but you well always be part of the Mean Green family.

there are a lot of weird m effers at north texas. That has nothing to do with us on a board talking about our coach. It's just a comment on the people at north texas...

they are dragging this out for us as well. I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting tired of waiting on what lsu does.

it is sad to see him go, but I'm looking forward to seeing what they replace him with. It's a new day for the ticket.

I think they said that one of those guys is one of us. maybe that's why.

That's funny