O&G Firm Opens Hotel

Weve all heardhousing is scarce in the Eagle Ford Shale area. Rather than let Bed, Bath & Beyond benefit from an increase in pillow forts, one energy company decided to do something about it: Valor Petroleum built PetroStay Hotel to serve the booming Cotulla area.

Valor Petroleum CFO Steve Koontz tells us his firm sold some Eagle Ford Shale properties to Marathon and had some cash on hand. Seeing the Cotulla region, 80 miles south of San Antonio, experience a huge influx of personnel, he decided to get ahead of the curve. PetroStay, a 62-key property fronting I-35, is designed specifically with oil and gas workers in mind. Quiet is one of the most important features; multiple people share one room and are often on different shifts so users are in and out of the hotel at all hours. To combat the noise, rooms are triple insulated. (Also, pillow fights are strictly prohibited.)

Another great feature is basically a giant mudroom where users can change out of their dirty coveralls before going up to their rooms. (Moms everywhere are ecstatic because they just cleaned the carpet.) Steve says many clients are on per diem and dont want to eat out all the time, so rooms are geared to independent living and feel like apartments. He tells us the property opened in October and is solidly beating industry standards. (Thanks to limited rooms and killer demand, hotel rooms in Cotulla are averaging $300 a night.) Steve tells us his firm might build another hotel if it found a similar opportunity, a city with great long-term potential but no infrastructure.