Luxury Hotel Planned For Converted Baptist Mission Office In Gwinnett

A hospitality development firm is planning a luxury, amenity-rich hotel in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, chasing room rates most often found in Buckhead or Midtown.

JMS Family Office purchased the former Georgia Baptist Mission Board headquarters, a six-story 138K SF office building on 40.4 acres, in January for $23.5M. The property sits near the intersection of Satellite Boulevard and Sugarloaf Parkway, across from the Gas South District Arena and Convention Center.

JMS is gutting the facility to transform it into a 136-suite upscale hotel branded by Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a boutique hotel chain run by Hyatt, JMS Managing Partner Jay Patel told Bisnow. Patel said he expects rooms at the redeveloped building to fetch upwards of $300 a night.

“We’re going to be the only boutique hotel in the market,” Patel said. “You have to go to Buckhead or Avalon to get that caliber of hotel.”

The average nightly rate for the state's more than 200,000 hotel and motel rooms was $113/night, according to a Colliers Q4 study.

The JdV by Hyatt is expected to feature an 8,300 SF Turkish spa, a lobby bar, a rooftop restaurant and bar, and a 300-seat auditorium for hosting live music acts, business meetings and other programming, Patel said. The basement of the building used to be a recording studio, he said, which will be turned into a sports bar and entertainment venue while still incorporating a studio to cater to artists who perform at the Gas South Arena across the street.

Coupling room rates with the spa, food and beverage, Patel said his firm is estimating guests could spend upwards of $600 a night.

Debra Canon, the director of the School of Hospitality Administration with Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, said average daily room rates that high are unusual in the suburbs, especially in Gwinnett County.

“This obviously is not going to be our traditional convention hotel that Hyatt has made iconic. This is going to be catering to very, very high-end corporate for certain meetings and retreats, and the leisure traveler,” Canon said. “They’re not catering to the top 20%. They’re catering to the top 2-to-5%.”

The JdV by Hyatt will target a customer base extending from the northern suburbs to as far out as Greenville, South Carolina, Patel said, since the hotel is directly off of Interstate 85 and is near the convention center and arena.

“It’s a different market,” Patel said. “The area has grown substantially. There’s been a lot of multifamily development in the market. This market supports the demand.”

Patel said JMS has “several commitments for bank financing” on the project, but the firm is also looking to raise funds through the EB-5 program. The property is located within a federal Targeted Employment Area, which allows foreign investors to invest a minimum of $800K in exchange for obtaining a green card within two years. TEAs were established by Congress to encourage investments in rural areas or those with high rates of unemployment

"EB-5 capital has a lower weighted-average cost of capital based on today’s environment," Patel said, adding the firm will begin raising funds through a regional EB-5 center once they draft the private placement memorandum.

“The Federal Reserve’s objective is to slow growth and increase unemployment in order to tame inflation,” he said. “However, developers must become creative to optimize the capital stack.”

While most common in urban centers, suburban Atlanta has seen its share of high-end hotels, including resort hotel Chateau Elan in Braselton and The Hotel at Avalon, an Autograph Collection hotel within the luxury mixed-use project in Alpharetta.

The JdV by Hyatt isn't the only new hotel coming to the area around the convention center. The Westin Atlanta Gwinnett hotel, built directly on the Gas South District campus, opens this week, with room rates fetching in the mid-$200/night range. The 11-story, 348-room Westin was developed by Concord Hospitality and is part of the planned reinvention of the Gas South District.

County officials told Bisnow last week they are close to announcing a partnership with private developers to transform the parking lot surrounding the convention center and arena into a mix of retail, restaurants and offices.

That project will help to draw a wider array of conventions and concert-goers, experts say, which should help prime demand for the new hotels. The JdV by Hyatt's focus on food and beverage offerings could help make it a destination for travelers, especially as hotel guests are often blending business travel with leisure.  

“[JMS’ project] is part of a much bigger mixed-use project that will be favorable to the market,” said Paul Breslin, managing director for the hotel consulting firm Horwath HTL. “The thing that makes it really unique is its close proximity to a tremendous demand generator.”