Eagan-based JR Hospitality is going to build a 151-room, 99,000-square-foot Hyatt House hotel in Bloomington, about half a mile south of the Mall of America. Hyatt House is an upscale, extended-stay brand that rolled out in 2012, but this would be the brand’s first location in Minnesota.
The four-story hotel would got up on a triangular, 4.8-acre site on the 2300 block of E. Old Shakopee Road, which would be an amalgam of five lots: A collection of vacant lots currently owned by the Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) and a parking lot owned by the semiconductor manufacturer, SkyWater Technology Foundry.
The spot is a 12-minute walk to the mall, a six-minute drive to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and within a mile of two major roads – Highway 77 and Interstate 494.
Hyatt House is similar in concept to Marriott’s Residence Inn and Hilton’s Homewood Suites, said Jay Bhakta, JR Hospitality’s managing partner, adding that both cater to customers who may be staying 14 to 30 days. Units are large and come with full kitchens.
There are two extended-stay hotels in the vicinity already, both of which are even closer to the mall and the airport. One is a Homewood Suites at 2261 Killebrew Dr., which was built in 1997 and is located across the street from the mall’s south side. The other is a TownePlace Suites at 2500 Lindau Ln., a three-year-old hotel on the mall’s northeast edge. Bloomington has at least two more that are further afield, both of which were built around the turn of the 21st century.
The Hyatt House site is also immediately south of another hospitality project that is currently under construction, according to the city’s permitting department – a dual-branded hotel by Herndon, VA-based Baywood Hotels which will fly under two Hilton banners, Tru and Home2 Suites. Home2 Suites is an extended-stay concept.
Nevertheless, Bhakta said the market is one of the strongest for this type of hotel stock.
“Our research shows that extended-stays are doing really well there,” Bhakta said, adding that as a newly-built hotel with a novel concept, Hyatt House will have an edge over most competitors in Bloomington. “Our product will be 15 to 20 years younger than most of what’s out there, so we’re going to be in a good position.”
The parcels are under contract, Bhakta said, and will likely be in hand by this summer.
In December 2017, MAC agreed to sell its portion of the site to JR Hospitality for little more than $1 million, said MAC spokesperson Patrick Hogan. MAC was represented by broker Brian Pankratz with the Minneapolis office of Los Angeles-based CBRE.
The deal will be finalized soon, Hogan said.
Executives from SkyWater Technology Foundry did not respond to a request for comment.
The project is still winding its way through city hall. In order to build the hotel, Bloomington will have to change the zoning. A public hearing took place on Thursday at the Planning Commission, which approved the change, and another is scheduled for the full city council on May 21.
If all goes smoothly, JR Hospitality will begin construction this fall and open the hotel in spring of 2019.
Bhakta declined to disclose the total development cost.
Hyatt House is one of many projects in the works for JR Hospitality, which is expanding at a blistering pace. The company operates just two hotels right now, but has 13 in the pipeline, including four new hotels in downtown Minneapolis.
