FelCor's Pared Down So It Can Do Landmark Deals Like This

Dallas-based FelCor has spent the last several years cleaning up its balance sheet and disposing of non-core assets (bringing its portfolio down from over 200 hotels to around 40) so it can take advantage of acquisition opportunities, VP Debbie Feldman (a speaker at BLIS, our upcoming national hotel conference) tells us. Those have been few and far between because the market’s been so overheated, and meanwhile it’s been redeveloping its portfolio. FelCor’s largest deal to date is a mix of those two—it purchased the Knickerbocker Hotel in Times Square in 2012 and is wrapping up its redevelopment now.

The historic property was a hotel from 1906 until 1920 (it's pictured here in 1909) and then was office until FelCor reopened it in February. Most of the 330 rooms are complete, Debbie tells us, and the remainder will deliver by the end of the year. Debbie says there’s been a lot of chatter about New York being oversupplied—and she agrees—but she expects this deal to be a home run.

Over the next few years, FelCor is considering rebranding opportunities at several of its hotels around the country, and is kicking off more redevelopments, including the Vinoy Renaissance in St. Petersburg, FL. FelCor bought that in ’08 and is looking at a significant capital investment to increase rates and increase golf course membership. And although Debbie doesn’t expect FelCor will enter new markets anytime soon (it'd rather bulk up in core markets than spread across the country), she did offer a hot tip—she’s heard that Pittsburgh may be the next “it” market—Uber and Google both set up offices there recently and are hiring thousands, including Uber snatching 40 Carnegie Mellon researchers for a tech center. (It apologized by donating $5.5M to the university to hire a new team.)

Join us at BLIS (Bisnow Lodging Investment Summit) in Washington, DC, on Oct. 19 to hear from Debbie and other hospitality industry titans. Register here.