LOS ANGELES — Soul Community Planet, a California-based operator of lodges and boutique hotels in picturesque destinations mostly on the West Coast, expanded its portfolio outside of the U.S. in 2022, but barely scratched the surface of its growth plans, SCP co-founder and CEO Ken Cruse said.
“We would have liked to have done five or six more hotel acquisitions over the course of the year,” he said. “I think this year we’re moving into a window of opportunity for deals that makes sense for us, that we can fit into our portfolio nicely and advance the brand story.”
The competition for hotel deals raised prices for properties in 2021 and the first half of 2022, slowing down the company’s intended deals pace, he said.
Still, SCP entered the international hospitality market by acquiring the Casa Corcovado Jungle Lodge on 189 acres of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, The property was rebranded as the SCP Corcovado Wilderness Lodge.
In June, the sustainability- and wellness-focused hospitality company also acquired the Glendeven Inn & Lodge and Inn at the Cobbler’s Walk in Little River, California, to combine into one property — the 31-room SCP Mendocino Inn and Farm.
With the additions, SCP has nine properties in its lodging portfolio, including the SCP Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island, the SCP Colorado Springs and three hotels each in California and Oregon.
The SCP brand has evolved significantly over the years since it started in 2018. The initial idea was to take vintage motels and convert them into Soul Community Planet properties — a strategy that is still viable, Cruse said.
However, the company has expanded the scope of its portfolio, focusing on premium properties for travelers who are willing to go out of their way and pay more for experiences that fit with their core values, he said.
The company now pursues storied hotels in storied markets that have their own appeal and garner average daily rates of more than $300, Cruse said. That’s a significant shift from its initial property, the SCP Colorado Springs, that brings in $100 to $200 in ADR.
The growth strategy also includes acquiring hotels that are smaller or aren’t being operated efficiently as a one-off hotel, as well as building a bigger base in a market by combining multiple hotels into one.
“That gives us a good advantage as a buyer, because we’re typically competing with maybe individual owner/operator-style buyers,” he said. “We can also underwrite synergies that wouldn’t be available to someone who’s just going to run the one property.”
New Destinations
With the combination of two inns in Little River, California, into the SCP Mendocino Inn and Farm, the company is looking to create a destination, or at least highlight a lesser-known one.
Near the Mendocino Coast, the renovated property also includes 15 acres of farm pastures, organic gardens and wellness, socialization and dining spaces.
Cruse said Mendocino is a nature-focused, regenerative destination; and given how close the area is to the major gateway markets of Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area, it’s surprising how undiscovered it is.
“I think that’s about to change, or at least that’s part of our thesis,” he said.
SCP has another deal in Mendocino under contract that will add more than 20 rooms to its existing operations, he said. The goal is to operate them all together for 60 rooms in an emerging market.
“I would say in the case of Mendocino, we’ve certainly got a huge upside potential that we can manage very efficiently because we can do one general manager, one housekeeping team, one engineering team operating those two previously disparate operations, eliminating a lot of redundancy and overhead and operating costs,” he said.
SCP entered another exciting market in Costa Rica, which Cruse and his team spent the better part of 2022 researching to understand what works and what doesn’t and what opportunities could fit within the SCP portfolio.
“There are a lot of areas in Costa Rica that are fully discovered and sort of have the mega-resort presence and the vibe that's a little bit different from what we're looking for,” he said.
The SCP Corcovado Wilderness Lodge, adjacent to the Corcovado National Park, is on the Osa Peninsula, which juts into the South Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The property has a main lodge with 14 garden villas, a three-bedroom beach house, a full-service restaurant, two bars, a beach club, a communal lounge, three swimming pools and several eco-adventure facilities.
“It has virtually a private beach,” he said. “You have to get there by boat, so it’s effectively our beach, a half-mile worth of just this gorgeous beach with waterfalls flowing into the sand.”
The property is already sustainable as it operated off the grid before SCP Hotels bought it, Cruse said. The prior owner had learned over the past several decades how to run a high-end hotel operation in an ecologically friendly way. The developer of the property was a naturalist who wanted to help preserve the Osa Peninsula and the surrounding rainforest.
“That's an asset and a destination that just tells the SCP story for us better than we can tell it ourselves,” he said.
Sustainability Efforts
New properties bring new lessons, and SCP Hotels’ new property in Costa Rica has some sustainability practices that can improve the company’s efforts across its portfolio, Cruse said.
SCP Hotels partnered with a group called Fundación Corcovado that has developed regenerative farming techniques for the peninsula. With all of the plants in the rainforest competing for nutrients in the soil, the lodge’s gardens needed some extra help.
A Japanese composting technique at the property uses molasses and rice to create a fermented substance that helps the soil become more productive, he said.
“The gardens are just thriving and producing tons of produce,” he said.
The company intends to use some of these regenerative farming practices at its other properties, including its new one in Mendocino as well as its Salishan Coastal Lodge in Gleneden Beach.
In 2022, SCP achieved its goal of net-zero waste. While it produced an estimated 1 pound of waste per occupied room, the company’s regenerative programs resulted in an estimated 2.5 pounds of waste recovery and carbon sequestration per occupied room.
“The way we've defined it from day one is that we want to, first of all, minimize the amount of waste that's generated,” Cruse said.
Food waste and packaging are the biggest sources of waste generated on property at hotels, he said.
The hotels partner with local farms, using food from the farms in meals and then sending back the food waste as compost for the next year’s crops. The hotel chefs also are focused on full use of every ingredient, he said.
“We have a very thoughtful approach to how we utilize as much of the produce as possible rather than even creating the waste in the first place,” he said.
SCP launched its Pristine Playa program for the SCP Corcovado Wilderness Lodge, modeled after its Pristine Makai program for SCP Hilo in Hawaii. The waste recovery program will remove ocean waste from the shores of the national park and provide income for residents of the peninsula.
The company’s SCP Redmond Hotel in Redmond, Oregon, also earned its Bronze Benchmarked designation from EarthCheck, a business advisory group that focuses on sustainability and destination management. It’s the first in the state and second SCP hotel to achieve the certification.