KANSAS CITY, KS— When it opens its new log-cabin influenced, 76-room Hampton Inn here next week, Indiana-based Focus Enterprises, Inc. will make a leap outside its traditional regional market, looking to reprise a successful business relationship with an outdoor furnishings retailer that has helped drive business to a similar property in Michigan. For the first time in its 12 years, the Valparaiso company, which specializes in real estate, construction and development, is making a move outside its tri-state base of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois, where it owns (18) and manages (three) a portfolio of independent and branded hotels. These include Carlton Lodges, Auburn Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Super 8 and Days Inn. The move also marks the companys first Hampton Inn. It was in Michigan where two years ago Focus opened a 77-room Holiday Inn Express in Dundee, adjacent to Cabelas, an outfitter of fishing, hunting and other outdoor gear. “That Cabelas store drew six million people to it the first year,” recalled Jerald Good, president of Focus. “Our hotel, designed to look like an outdoorsy-themed atmosphere fit in real well and filled up. We did very well there.” The executive said the occupancy ramped up from 52% in its first year to 80%-plus this past August. Good, himself an avid hunter and fisherman, had been familiar with the sporting goods store since his youth. Still, at first he had a difficult time convincing the retailers that his hotel would be a good fit. He told the retailers a hotel right next to their Dundee store would be the perfect place for them. His persistence— and sense of humor— paid off, he said, and after reviewing Focus portfolio and business plan, Cabelas agreed on the project. “The Cabela folks stay with us now in Dundee and see the kind of place that weve built. They were actually [eager]for us to build in Kansas. And were looking at their next development in [Hamburg] Pennsylvania,” said Good. The three-story Hampton Inn is a $5.2 million project with a log-cabin-style exterior and woodsy interior design, including a fieldstone fireplace in the lobby. The property will sit adjacent to Cabelas Kansas City store and proximate the Kansas Speedway, where the Nascar track has some 200 events a year. The development is “very unique,” said Good. “The Cabelas store is about five acres and will draw about six million people. Theyve just about been open a year now, and theyre right at those numbers.” Dubbed Village West, the development includes a 720,00-square-foot Nebraska Furniture Mart, the Kansas T-Bones Triple-A baseball team home base, the Great Wolf Lodge water park and other outlets. Within the UTD theres also another couple hundred acres that are being privately developed to include more retail. “Were looking at a second, and possibly a third hotel site there,” said Good. Focus made the brand leap as a result of impact issues; however, said Good, the company had been eager to join the Hilton family. “Weve also been invited by Marriott to build Marriott products, he said. Focus recently acquired a second Hampton franchise. “So were moving ahead with those folks as well,” said Good. In addition to pure hotels, Focus also is involved in a prototypical water park hotel/conference center project its looking to bring to smaller communities where there is a solid tourism base. Good said the Holiday Inn Express in Dundee would be the first hotel in its portfolio to get the prototype model via an expansion to several hundred rooms.
The 76-room Hampton Inn Village West