Be A Good Neighbor (Lessons From Opening The Ameswell in Silicon Valley) - Lauren Phelps

Josiah: 

Over the past week, we've learned from a lot of people who are building new things. We got started on this after hearing Nina Kleveland's compelling case on why we need more new businesses in hospitality. And then we looked at someone who is building a new brand and operating company, David Rust at Sagra, as well as someone who turned a historic property into one of the hottest new luxury properties in California, Cory Schisler at the Madrona. Today, Lauren Phelps is going to walk us through what her experience was opening the Ameswell in California's Silicon Valley. You might remember Lauren from past episodes where she talked about renting your hotel like a startup and how to hire in competitive markets, but here she is explaining what it was like to build and open a brand new hotel.

Lauren: 1:14

So effectively, the Ameswell was a ground-up build, one of the first new builds in Mountain View, and I think over 17 years at the time there have been others now and the market really did need it. It had luxury options, it had limited select service options, but it didn't really have anything in the middle. Maybe we all know that Silicon Valley ADRs in 2019 were absolutely. It was a bonanza, it was wild, and so those sort of latent demand factors there made sense. They needed another hotel, they needed more inventory, and so they developed. I think one of the things that's so cool is they had an opportunity to develop a totally ground-up brand. Because of that, partially because of that latent demand, they didn't have to rely on a flag and because it just didn't have anything cool. I mean, I'm so sorry, fellow citizens of Mountain View, but like before Ameswell, I don't know what the cool place I mean and I hope that it continues to grow right, that culture, I'd love to see it. But it was a beautiful sort of marriage of the history of the space in aeronautics Ames, NASA, Ames is there and there were beautiful references to that both in the development and then in the final product. It really shines through and it's a great reflection of the place that it lives and it goes down into the ethos. Broadreach was very intentional, which I think is the word I want to use. I want to say they were very intentional in reflecting sort of the ethos of Silicon Valley, not just in the sort of like FF&E and in the font, but also in the culture and how we innovate on hospitality in this one property setting. And so that's, I think, why it was a perfect opportunity for me, because I had a huge passion for innovating, rethinking, questioning and the real thing we wanted to do was run the Ameswell like the startups that it lived among and that it served as a customer.

Josiah: 3:11

Well, it's interesting to hear that opportunity. I was in Mountain View yesterday... my wife works for a tech company there and I'm very familiar with the area and it's interesting even with the amount of money that's around there, the amount of innovation that's taking place there and has been for decades. This is kind of like the OG heart of innovation in Silicon Valley where there was still this opportunity just a few years ago. And I think for those listening it can speak to. There could be these really cool places that for one reason or another, have not had a lot of innovation from a hospitality perspective. And I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the barriers. Before this, we were talking a bit about leading up to this project being launched. But there are significant barriers and can you kind of take us back to that moment when the project was in kind of the ideation phase? What were some of the challenges that initially you faced?

Lauren: 3:54

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you have to be patient if you want to be in any sort of development role in any real estate, you know, sector, hospitality or otherwise. Because we live in California, those in other states. I think this is one of our reputational aspects, or better or worse. But there is a lot of red tape you have to get through. I think the thing I wish I could change is I do wish it were easier for folks with perhaps slightly shallower pockets and no knock on those with deep pockets who are doing the good work, because of course we need them. But I do wish it were easier because for the Ameswell the process was multiple submissions with the city mockups. There are service providers involved, there's architects, there's developers, there's lawyers. All of this has to happen and the sum of money that is required in order to even submit a proposal with no guarantee of winning it is it can be really high. For us it was not too short of $10 million, and so $10 million.

Josiah: 4:58

Close to $10 million. Close yeah, not quite there, but but a lot of money. We're not checking a couple thousand here. This is a big chunk of money.

Lauren: 5:05

And if you were to raise that as someone really passionate about this in the community, as someone who just saw a need and wanted to fill it but didn't have that capital, it would be hard, especially now, and we know that.

Josiah: 5:17

And just to that point. Hopefully some city officials are listening to this. But hospitality adds so much to local communities, right, and so this feels an opportunity to enhance your neighborhoods, to make your cities more vibrant, to drive economic activity and really looking at here's barriers that are holding people back from making this happen.

Lauren: 5:37

Totally, totally. And of course, Mountain View city officials were fantastic partners with Broadreach. Broadreach was engaged with them every step of the way. Everything was done with that community in mind. But having someone who's grown up in that space too, having an opportunity to play a role luckily they were able to advise and that was hugely impactful. But it does make you think where are these barriers and how can we really get the folks who are going to be impacted and visit them the most really involved in their creation. I mean, I feel like hospitality folks know this so well, but so much of what makes hotels succeed is not the high strategy and I say that as someone who loves that piece and has made somewhat of a career on it. It's knowing the PTA president, it's knowing the people who show up at the dog park every day. It's so community oriented and so making sure that those people are involved and aligned and you're building something for them, because if you build it for them, it's going to work for other people too. They're going to tell people.

Josiah: 6:44

I do have to ask you a follow-up question, though, about building relationships, because especially local relationships, specifically because, as you mentioned, this seems to be vital to successfully being a hospitality leader knowing that people maybe in the physical blocks around you kind of the different community leaders. In your time in an operational role, what did you find most useful in building those relationships?

Lauren: 7:07

I think you have to make yourself available, the same way you do to your employees, to the community. You have to show the community the best way you can that you are an asset to them, a reflection of them, a stakeholder and a partner for them, and that can be organizing community meetings at the property, that can be going around and door knocking, that can be polling them. We had a Nextdoor channel where we were keeping tabs, both on sort of if we were having events. Are we, you know, is there a noise concern or like what do people want? And we a lot of people in our neighborhood who live near the Amesville have dogs. We have a lot of green space. We held a lot of dog-friendly community events. We worked with local shelters and, you know, really engaging with the city officials and the county officials where you live, making sure that they know that you're a partner rather than someone who's not their ally.

Josiah: 7:58

Yeah, Well, I love it because this is where hotels and hospitality providers have a really unique advantage, because you have the physical space and you can be that neighborhood hub. But it doesn't always happen just automatically. I think it takes this mentality and a lot of work to get there.

Lauren: 8:12

Totally yeah. And you can't just do it once a year, you have to do it all the time.