Griffin Stafford eyes new
hotel in Mooresville
By Dave Yochum.
One of North Carolina's top hotel companies plans to build a new hotel in Mooresville, most likely on Interstate 77 near booming Lake Norman.
Doug Stafford, half of Griffin Stafford LLC, says he hopes to get the project under way late next year, after all the planning and financing is completed. Stafford would not disclose where the hotel would be located but the area around Lowes Home Improvement Headquarters at Exit 33 and the new Exit 32 have had a shortage of rooms, with two hotels, despite the remarkable growth of office space around Lowes and Lake Norman Regional Medical Center.
The area will boom even more when Langtree at the Lake gets under way at the new Exit 32. The $700 million mixed-use project will be similar to Birkdale Village in Huntersville at Exit 25.
With a "Vendor-ville" rising quickly around Lowes corporate headquarters, the southern reaches of Mooresville are ripe for more growth and new hotel rooms.
Exit 36, three miles north of 33, has nine hotels, according to the Mooresville Convention & Visitors Bureau.
SpringHill Suites by Marriott is the second hotel at Exit 33 and the newest; the Hilton Garden Inn was the first. Both cater to the business traveler, with business amenities and meeting space.
Griffin Stafford has targeted the business market from its beginning, with the opening of a Wingate by Wyndham hotel in the center of Bruton Smith Boulevard five years ago. The 93-room property is within a stone's thrown of another Griffin Stafford property, the 101-room Suburban Extended Stay Hotel, the company's second venture.
In an interview, Stafford said more hotel brands can help a market, in that they help define it as a brand-name destination, not a remote backwater.
Moreover, a looming recession is hardly daunting to Stafford, who got his start in the hospitality business in Asheville where he headed up the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority. He went on to become president of the Charlotte Convention & Visitors Bureau and, in 1992, he became executive vice president and operating manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord. There he planned events, and oversaw the company's capital development and real estate groups. Stafford and Joel Griffin, another hospitality veteran, joined forces and formed Griffin Stafford to develop and manage hotels in 2003.
Stafford does not expect average room rates to fall in 2009 during the recession. If demand drops, labor costs go down, based on fewer rooms to clean, less work to be done.
Griffin Stafford also manages the new Hilton Garden Inn in southwest Charlotte, and owns an extended stay hotel in North Charleston, S.C. Stafford sees local tourism benefiting from a weakening economy. While pricey trips involving air travel may decline, he suggests that families will still want to take more modest, more local vacations.
"We have not gone through a cut and slash program, but whenever you are in a softer economy, you look at ways to be thriftier without impacting the business. Our customer must never feel the impact, breakfast and managers' receptions must be as good as before, but there are ways to be more efficient, such as looking at supplies," Stafford says.
Cutting rates to attract business merely results in an almost unstoppable downward spiral where everyone loses. "The one thing hoteliers understand the best, if they start cutting rates to attract business, all they will do is borrow business from a neighbor, and then the neighbor will do the same, starting a precarious downward spiral," Stafford said. "Better brands understand that they are not in the business of going after another customer based on price. It is really the amenities they look for: an excellent bed, a great shower, good HVAC, a great TV and a clean room."
He stated, "Protect the rate integrity and give them what they are looking for, then you are going to win."
On the investment side, Stafford says the suburban extended stay model works well. During the first couple of years the return for investors may be minimal, but after that they easily rise to above 10 percent, to 12 percent or 13 percent, on average.
