A new extended-stay hotel brand with roots in commercial real estate development has started its third and fourth hotel projects as part of a plan to expand quickly across the United States.
Salt Lake City-based LivAway Suites, which calls itself “a new economy extended-stay hotel brand with a developer-centric business model,” broke ground recently on a 63,000-square-foot hotel at 1289 Tapteal Drive in the southeastern Washington city of Richland, and a 59,700-square-foot property at 3455 W. Broadway St. in Missoula, Montana.
The properties, planned for 126 rooms each, are expected to be finished next year, CoStar data shows. LivAway, which also this year started projects in Jordan, Utah, and Nashville, Tennessee, expects to break ground at several other locations before the end of the year, the company said in a statement.
The LivAway brand is trademarked by West77 Partners, a development company founded in 2014 that has completed eight Woodspring Suites hotels across Washington, Utah, and Idaho, a Homewood Suites in Utah; and a Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Bellevue near Seattle.
LivAway said its projects are backed by $85 million in debt financing arranged this year through Salt Lake City-based Keystone National Group. The brand expects to expand aggressively despite the tightening of credit markets fueled by interest rate increases and other factors that have driven up financing costs and forced some hotel developers to cancel or postpone projects, LivAway CEO Mike Nielson, who is also founder and CEO of West77 Partners, said in the statement.
"The economy extended-stay segment performed incredibly well during the pandemic and the great financial crisis," Keystone's Taylor Jackson said in the statement. "LivAway Suites capitalizes on that recession-resilient operating model with better aesthetics, smart technology and a developer-centric platform."
However, the extended-stay hotel segment's results have slipped lately as U.S. leisure and corporate travel has returned to more normal levels, according to Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director for hospitality market analytics. Growth in revenue per available room has decelerated steadily since hitting its pandemic peak in early 2022, though occupancy remains well above the average of about 63% for all hotels, according to Freitag.
LivAway has more than 25 projects in various stages of development across the country. The company announced in February that it added hospitality veteran Robert La Forgia, principal and CEO of Apertor Hospitality, to its ownership group.
La Forgia was chief financial officer and executive vice president during 26 years with Hilton Hotels, now Hilton Worldwide Holdings.