RREAF Holdings—a privately held, vertically integrated real estate investment and development firm—has formed MxR Hospitality, a strategic partnership with hospitality investor Phillip McNeill, Sr. The collaboration aims to develop extended-stay hotels nationwide and create a hospitality-management company dedicated exclusively to the extended-stay segment.
“Our experience with third-party property management in our multifamily portfolio showed us firsthand the challenges of maintaining quality and consistency," Eric Watts, director of extended-stay at RREAF Holdings, said in a statement. “We created our in-house property management firm, RR Living to address these challenges, and we saw similar gaps in the extended-stay sector, where these assets are often underserved. With MxR Hospitality, our goal is to bring the same commitment to operational excellence and best-in-class management to extended-stay hotels, both within our portfolio and across the industry."
McNeill was one of the first franchise owners of a Hampton Inn, opening the second location in its history in Little Rock, Ark., in 1984; and was, at one time, the largest franchise owner of Hampton properties. McNeill also was chairman of the board of directors and CEO for the publicly-traded Equity Inns real estate investment trust from the company’s founding in 1993 to January 2005. He also was non-executive chairman of Equity Inns, Inc. at the time of its sale in 2007 to a real estate fund of Goldman Sachs for $2.2 billion, with a portfolio of 138 hotels.
“Phillip McNeill, Sr. is a trailblazer in the hotel industry, known for his investment acumen and belief in the importance of long-term partnerships based on mutual respect and benefit,” said Kip Sowden, chairman and CEO of RREAF Holdings. “We see excellent potential and a strong operating model for economy extended stay properties in today’s marketplace.”
With the extended-stay sector experiencing exponential growth over the past three years, according to the company, MxR Hospitality aims to enhance both existing economy extended-stay assets and those currently under development.