TUCSON, Ariz. — Following the announcement of My Place Hotels’ new prototype and the one-bedroom suite that will be added to future hotels, co-founder and CEO Ryan Rivett is excited about the company’s growth potential. Over the past two years, the company has averaged one opening every 70 days and now has 73 hotels open across 30 states. The brand’s leadership is aiming to open the 90th My Place hotel in 2025—but Rivett is more concerned with finding the right partners than speeding to the proverbial market.
My Place’s portfolio is a mix of new franchisees entering the system and franchise developers with multiple hotels in their portfolios, Rivett said, noting that the company’s largest franchise developers have 10 or 11 properties. The largest owner of My Place hotels, however, is My Place itself, which owns and operates about a third of all the brand’s open hotels. “I'm happy that that percentage is becoming smaller and smaller, because franchisees are outpacing us, but we're continuing to develop properties in our portfolio too,” Rivett said.
The My Place Hotel-Randolph, Vt., opened last month as the brand’s first hotel in Vermont. The franchised property is owned by Randolph Hospitality and was developed by Realty Development Services. The company also has deals in place for debut hotels in California and Florida among its 120-property development pipeline, as well as “a handful” of hotels underway in the Southeast, the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. “Every time you open a new property or go under development on a new property, the amount of exposure you get in that community or in that region really is a good catalyst for new development,” Rivett noted.
Currently, My Place hotels are exclusively new-build, but conversions could soon join the portfolio mix through the Trend brand, which launched in 2020. The current economic environment is driving demand for conversions, Rivett said, which in turn is driving the My Place team to grow its Trend brand. My Place is coordinating with the current operators of the brand’s first properties, which could open as soon as next year. The conversion process, he said, is “challenging,” because the current owners have to coordinate with their capital partners and their current brand to make the transition, and then develop the implementation strategy for the conversion and complete whatever capital upgrades are needed. “You don't necessarily hear about a conversion of a hotel until it happens,” Rivett noted. “It appears that it happens pretty quickly, because the signs change overnight, but really, it takes many months of coordination and planning, in most cases, to get that conversion to come about.”
Challenging Markets
Rivett believes a "challenging" real estate market could be keeping entrepreneurs from entering the hospitality industry through new development. “Lending markets are somewhat restricted with respect to commercial real estate in general, and hospitality is one of the more risky commercial real estate sectors,” he explained. “Real estate development is challenging, always, but a little more so today.” As such, much of My Place’s growth is coming from owners with existing portfolios who are looking to expand and diversify.
But while individual hospitality investments may be risky, Rivett described the industry as a whole as “very, very stable,” with rare “severe lows” that hurt other commercial real-estate sectors and rapid rebounds from downturns.
Despite the number of new midscale and economy extended-stay brands opening from much larger companies, Rivett expressed little concern for competition. “We got a lot of it figured out, and so there's a lot that our new competition has to figure out as they hit the market,” he noted. Rivett also acknowledged hearing interest from larger companies about a possible acquisition, but does not expect to sell his brand. “It's always a big compliment to get a phone call like that, and it's always intriguing to have a conversation like that, but at no point in the foreseeable future am I programming an opportunity like that or a transition like that,” he said. “We've got a relatively young brand. We're really hitting our stride. We've got a great team, a group of people that are committed to what they're doing. We're just getting to a point where we're really running and moving fast. No longer are we growing into the brand that we are today. We've established, and we're maintaining it really well. So now [the question is] just, how much can we grow? How far can we go?”