kirkerblog 4.0

I'm making a last-minute excursion to Dallas this weekend to pick up a couple of furniture pieces I just won at auction, but I figured I may as well gather some competitive intelligence on the area's hotels while I'm up there. The one I'm most curious about is the Belmont, which opened about a year ago in Dallas's Oak Cliff neighborhood. Oak Cliff is similar to South Austin in some ways: parts of it have million-dollar mansions, parts of it have hookers and drugs, and the Belmont is in an area that I had previously associated with the latter. (Then again, even Austin's main South Congress strip still had no-tell-motels barely ten years ago, including the San Jose.) It was refashioned out of a '40s-era motor lodge that had fallen into a state of disrepair, and they're apparently going for a '60s-era Palm Springs vibe with it ... which, coincidentally, is what Austin's unassociated Belmont restaurant/bar is doing as well. I gather they didn't pony up for a full gut-reno job -- the old '40s and '50s bathrooms and flooring remain -- but we'll see. I'm also staying at the Palomar, which I mentioned earlier.

I will admit that I'm not a Dallas fan -- although I lived there until the age of 13, I consider myself a native Austinite at this point -- but I'm starting to come around a bit, and Mimi Swartz's recent NY Times Magazine piece convinced me even further, so I'll check out its new-and-improved arty districts and see what happens. I may also have to scoot over to Fort Worth to check out the Kimbell.

I hesitate to admit this, but I think I have to tune in for tonight's premiere of Tori Spelling's new reality show. It details the trials and tribulations of her attempt to open a "hipster bed & breakfast" out in the desert east of L.A. I'm curious why the daughter of one of Hollywood's richest men, who grew up in one of the largest single-family houses in the world, would want to open up a B&B hours from her L.A. base, but I'm tempted to take the cynic's perspective and wonder if it's only because she thought it'd make for interesting reality-show fodder. Considering she just gave birth to her first child, I'm skeptical she and her husband can run the place effectively.

Btw my lead last week didn't pan out. I discovered somewhat randomly (it hasn't been disclosed publicly) that one of the few remaining older motels on South Congress recently changed hands, and that it'd been bought by one of Austin's most successful bar & restaurant entrepreneurs. He's been planning to convert the place into office and retail space; I tried to talk him out of it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do so; he doesn't have the bandwidth to enter a new and labor-intensive field of business outside of his core competency. (Did I just say "bandwidth" and "core competency"? I feel like a dot-commer again...)

The perils of mixing business and pleasure: how does one politely turn down the romantic advances of someone one is potentially interested in doing a business deal with? I had this experience late last night, admittedly after a few cocktails on my part (and quite a few more on his part). Wasn't quite sure how to handle it, but I figured the most tactful way was to simply make my excuses and leave. Any tips for handling such pitfalls in the future?

Had an interesting lead on a hotel prospect yesterday, possibly my most intriguing -- as well as realistic -- one yet. Definitely too early to say anything specific about it, however, plus I'm mostly putting hotel stuff on the backburner this week. The whole SXSW gauntlet started last night with frogdesign's annual opening-night fete for the Interactive part of the festival, which is unfortunately no longer held in their seriously-bad-ass offices on Congress (they used the former Fox & Hound/Waterloo Brewing Company space instead). Lots of great bands to see this week, but I'm particularly excited about Spoon's "secret" showcase at Antone's late Wednesday night. (They're also opening for the Stooges at Stubb's Saturday night, but that show's gonna be crazy-crowded, and Antone's is a much more intimate space.)

Austin's first high-end mall, the Domain, opened today (they have a Neiman's, Barneys Co-op, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, etc.), so I drove up to check it out. At Neiman's I ran into Joel Mozersky, arguably Austin's most well-known interior designer -- he did the house used on "The Real World: Austin," as well as Uchi, Oslo and The Belmont -- whom I know from years back. (I won't recount the full tale of how we first met, but let's just say it was Halloween and we were both dressed up as iconic female pop singers.) He's on my top-3 list of designers I'd love to work with on the hotel project, so I told him a bit about my plans and how they're going. I specifically said something like "the San Jose is long overdue for some competition," and after we said our farewells I noticed a familiar face standing nearby: Liz Lambert, the owner of the San Jose! I have no idea if she overheard any of what I said, but it was rather embarrassing nonetheless, as well as another reminder that Austin is a small town in some ways (never mind the multiple other friends and acquaintances I ran into during my shopping excursion).

I also met with the president of a local bank today regarding hotel financing. I've been trying to figure out the "cart before the horse" question of whether it'd be better to first secure financing or find an appropriate property for conversion. The meeting, along with several others I've had this week with various folks, convinced me of the former. There's some understandable lender skepticism about the viability of new Austin hotel projects given that the city has so many new properties -- W, Kimpton, Seaholm Plaza, Twelve, and the 700-room Marriott they'll need to bulldoze Las Manitas (a famous Tex-Mex joint) to build -- coming online over the next 2-4 years. I need to be able to provide a bulletproof argument that there's room in the market for a small, independently owned boutique hotel, so I've decided to hire a hotel consultant to develop an Austin market analysis. An advantage I'd have is that all of the hotels in development are 4 or 4.5 star; no one's doing 3 or 5 (although the local Four Seasons is about to undergo a major overhaul, including the addition of a large spa facility). Is there an underserved market for, say, non-chain boutique hotels within five minutes' drive of downtown for under $200/night? I'm quite sure there is, but I need data to back up my assertions.