hickoryhouse

Couple of things, In my opinion ADR is not the gold standard anymore, RevPAR (Revenue per Availabe Room) gives a more acurate picture of exactly what kind of flow your property is experiencing. ADR is a good indicator of how you are pushing your rate as a hotel manager but it does nothing to show what your occupancy is, which is how hotels make money. For example if I have a 100 rm property that is 35% full at a $300 rate I have a great ADR of $300 and that ADR looks great on paper but when you dig deeper you see that your RevPAR is only $105, almost 2/3 less than ADR. That is why Holiday inn's do so well, and Motel's 6 and all that, they trade ADR for occ% and RevPAR. RevPAR also lets you see how your business is doing in comparison to your Cost per Occ Room. I'm not saying limited service is what we need, that ould be horrible, but you can have both, look at Four Seasons, Hilton, Omni, Embassy suites etc.... As far as renovation is concerned, many times these old buildings are not conducive to renovation, perhaps wireless internet is not feasable at a decent cost due to building design, location of piping and thick concrete walls drastically reduce signal strength. Perhaps the cabling for the TV is old and outdated and does not have sufficient bandwidth capabilities to sustain the demand for future HD programming in TV's or even for clear pictures on current TV's. It costs in the millions to only renovate carpets, furniture and light fixtures, then you have to add on sructural improvements and repairs and additional equipment etc... What my point is, it might not be possible to create that fantastic renovated property at this place and have it be all that is wanted of that location for a price that is acceptable. you can produce a new building, for more money, that will have longer life, be built to current specs and probably have design elements that are customizable for future evelopments in lodging technology, advancements and improved services. my .02

Also, did anyone else see FAU's OOC sched? That is a little brutal. We concern ourselves with "body bag Games" against LSU, they have three potental ones, well maybe two, minnesota could be a good game. But State and Texas is a bigger tandem than our Kstate and LSU. six of the Owls' first eight games are on the road, including trips to Texas, Michigan State and Minnesota

I especially liked this part.... "3. There's no more interesting 2-10 team in the country than North Texas. " we can get rid of the 2-10 thing i hope this year

Speaking as a professional in that particular industry, there are many reasons that hotels do not do well and outdated, and dilapidated facilities rank among the top of that list. The Radisson is definitely tops in both of those categories. Not saying that those are the main reasons for that building to not produce the kind of RevPAR that should be expected from a 300 Rm full service property but it definitely is a player in the decline of the business. As far as the real estate market being low that can actually be a god thing for hoteliers. Hotel owners play in the Real Estate market more than they do in the lodging market, there is more money there. "Purchasing" that building for that money seems to be a fairly good deal due to the fact that the note on that building is already owned by UNT. With the market being low and interest rates following suit, UNT can refinance the building, as many hotel owners do, in order to gain extra capital for whatever project they choose to attack next. Most Hoteliers purchase hotels not so they can make money on room rates, but so that they can make their money work for them by obtaining what essentially amounts to a Home Equity loan and turning that around for future projects. The building is 20 years old and if this is the plan of UNT it will be a big step in whatever future endeavors NT has for that area. As far as experience running a hotel... That is a bit over rated. There are many companies that have expressed interest in that piece of land. Being such a focal point (intersection of 35E and W) it is a great place for brand exposure. NT is a huge campus and Denton is growing by leaps and bounds. Having a nice hotel in town is an important thing and these hotel management companies know that. UNT will not run the building by themselves, to do so would be foolish they will have to hire a management company. On the flip side, however, due to the location the hotel mgmt co. will be requested to front money for the construction and marketing of the property. The business is complex and there is more to it than past performance, you have to understand why the building was performing poorly and what needs to be done to fix that. Was it Management, was it upkeep, was it location, was it product offerings, was it price etc... Conversely, future potential has to be taken into account as well. If a new hotel is going to be constructed now would be the time to begin when getting money is cheap. I agree, I toured that property in the past 6 months myself and it is in incredibly poor shape. It is not so bad to be condemned as it were, but it is bad enough that renovation might prove to be too costly and that the benefits of new construction will outweigh the savings of renovation.

Congrats dude! that is fantastic!

I seriously doubt that we will need the entire amount in hand to begin with, but that opens up another question.... is it like buying ahouse where they recomend 20% or is itmuch higher than that? What kind of money does a hotel sponsorship bring? would they not pay to sponsor if they paid to help build the building (one time exchange of cash vs. yearly)

I guess there was more than one or two who emailed him about his lack of fact checking,

That is fantastic! Now I can draw the UNT logo on my notebooks while slacking off in High School math class. What a great idea!!!

UA makes us matching shoes so that we are entirely green! ......... in 08 ........ oh yeah, and puts us on their website

I guess it is me who is stupid for not using it......

I can't believe they didn't predict that we would go 8-4 and win the conference! How dare ESPN.......And we think they don't pay attention to the Sun Belt

Case and point.... I think I'm just going to shut er' down for the day.

Sorry about that..... I guess it has been to long since i took english..... stupid spell check

What happens if his acedemics continue to falter? APR?

Wow..... logic and reason..... interesting ideas. We should all look into them. It would however be nice if there was a rivalry between these schools, that would be alot of fun.

Amazing. Even reading I can still hear Pacino's raspy haggard voice....... Absolutely amazing.....

You know, .... I have never thought of building a new stadium.. I always thought Fouts was fantastic! Maybe some one should call RV and let him in on that little idea?!

Maybe not, but if that is a perception that others want to propogate I am more than willing to turn a blind eye and not say anything. National perception always seemed to filter down into UNT's student body and because nationwide no one knew or cared, it tended to feel the same way with the students. I will take positive pub anyday, even if I don't believe it.

For a young alum like myself this has been a great history lesson. Lots of facets to the program that I did not know existed.

I really hate to say this bit I decided to try this, and I am so 'f'ing confused.......... screw it.

I was very proud to get my ring back in 06.... I will take pictures of it and post them, it is a very nice looking piece! I wish they had something like this when i got mine, it would have been great to experience that. Great Idea

If rumblings from the SMHM dept are any where near accurate expect a big name to pop up as the Management company for the brand new hotel facility going up soon.........

i can't wait to see this thing come down! I will be there wearing green and i will drink a celebratory Miller Lite and toast the future of the Mean Green

I have been talking with folks inside this as well, and word around the campfire is the POS Radisson is coming down, the 8 mil figure isn't far off from actual renovation costs, and that thing is ugly anyway. To create an effective hospitality laboratory enviornment something new is going to be constructed, and it is going to include a known and respected hotel name and management company, the annoucement will come as soon as ink is on paper and that will be sooner rather than later. Costs for a new property will be greater than the 8 mil but the new property management company can also be expected to incur a good portion of the cost of construction.

I think that the hotel is going to be leveles this summer, and a new more attractive and up to date property will be built in it's stead. we all know what that should lead too!