After years of casino closures and economic setbacks, Atlantic City’s Boardwalk recently landed its largest real estate investment in roughly two decades with the opening of the boutique Seahaus Hotel by NewcrestImage.
The company acquired the land and an existing hotel in 2023 and last month unveiled the repositioned property as part of a long-term strategy to grow through conversions and lifestyle-focused hospitality. The 105-room boutique hotel—a Marriott Tribute Portfolio property managed by Coury Hospitality—occupies a full city block and includes dining venues and 6,600 square feet of retail space along the Boardwalk.
“The driving force behind the deal was the ability to acquire land, which was oceanfront and located on the Boardwalk,” managing partner Mehul Patel told Hotel Management. “Atlantic City has more than 27 million annual visitors and the availability of good non-casino hotels is limited. We see this is as a niche.
“Our company expectations are to capture the family and transient guests who come to Atlantic City looking for alternatives to casinos,” he added.
Aligning Stars
NewcrestImage COO Dax Patel reinforced the point, further describing Atlantic City as an “extremely high barrier-to-entry market” that has seen a reversal of fortunes and gained momentum in recent years.
“Hurricane Sandy came [in 2012] and Atlantic City hit rock bottom. There were a lot of casino closures and the whole market was going down,” he said. “But we always knew because of the amount of visitors it’s still the Mecca for the Northeast or the Las Vegas of the east. The market was declining, but people were still coming and we saw the opportunity.”
According to New Jersey-based Stockton University, demand in Atlantic City has recovered from 2020’s trough to reach a 73 percent occupancy range in 2022–2023, and more recently 72 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, pricing power has also been relatively strong with average daily rates of roughly $178 and room supply remaining steady since 2018.
Dax Patel explained how the stars aligned for the company to acquire and develop “the only non -casino hotel on the boardwalk.” He noted one of the company’s local partners was initially approached about the opportunity by the long-time landowner, who wanted to sell. However, it wasn’t until the building owner decided to retire that the vision started to come to life.
“We said, ‘We don't buy leased properties, but if there's an opportunity to acquire the land and the building, then we'll take a look at it,’ since it's on the boardwalk and it's a whole city block,” he said.
In addition, Patel added that the adjacent Tropicana Atlantic City casino held the right of first refusal on the property, which they ultimately waived, paving the way for the NewcrestImage project.
“It was all made in the heavens. I don't know how it happened, but it happened, so we took that opportunity and we seized it,” he said.
Rebranding and Renovating
The conversion of the property—which had previously operated for more than 50 years as an independent hotel and most recently as a 107-room Days Inn—took some 10 months. Dax Patel noted that the goal behind the development of the luxury boutique was to “make it more of a Jersey Shore hotel.”
Seahaus is part of NewcrestImage’s renewed expansion push following the 2022 sale of most of its assets—26 hotels totaling more than 3,500 guestrooms—to Summit Hotels. Since then, the company has rebuilt its portfolio to more than 45 hotels through acquisitions and conversions, a strategy Mehul Patel described as central to the company’s identity.
“Conversions are core to NewcrestImage,” said Mehul Patel. “Repositioning well-located but underutilized assets with brands like Tribute or Tapestry delivers emotional for our guests and financial value for us.”
NewcrestImage recently acquired the 176-room NYLO Dallas Plano, part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection, with plans for a repositioning. The eco-friendly boutique hotel in Plano’s Legacy District is slated to undergo a full renovation and Tapestry Collection rebrand.
The company is also poised to rebrand the Beeman Hotel in Dallas in early 2026, looking to transform it into a cultural hub with programming around food, arts, music and community engagement.
“The Beeman Hotel is in the works of getting transformed and it will be affiliated with a nationally recognized brand,” said Mehul Patel.
Since 2013, NewcrestImage has bought and sold nearly 300 hotels—transactions worth more than $3 billion and encompassing close to 32,000 rooms. With the Seahaus Hotel, Mehul Patel said, the company is showing its ability to “reimagine” properties in ways that anticipate demand shifts.
“Seahaus is a statement, it proves we can take an asset in a challenged market and transform it into something with cultural and financial impact,” he said.