Welcome to the second part of our Hotel to Multifamily Conversion series by James Kandasamy. In our last episode, we discussed the acquisition process of Salado Creek Apartments, which had initially been a hotel. Today, we bring you part two of our conversion journey.
As a start after our purchase, we started with landscaping where Our team worked tirelessly to trim the trees and shrubs around the property. The hotel had deferred maintenance for a long time and it was worst during COVID. The process almost took 10 days to complete. We need a clean and well-manicured environment to attract good residents for our future multifamily.
We also did some creative things with the multifamily conversion process. We tweaked 130 units from hotel to multifamily efficiency units. Since it’s a requirement to have closets in multifamily units, we modified an open space to an “open” closet. The toilet had a small door due to an older grandfathered-in code. We decided to add a “barn” door to save space to it. We decided to leave the PTAC instead of changing it to multifamily HVAC units as it’s not really needed. These are some of the creative ideas that we decided to do during the conversion process.
At that time of the takeover, the occupancy rate stood at 9%, but we were confident that with the changes will be attractive to residents on a 12 months lease (instead of daily occupied units in the Hotel).
The next part will focus on painting the exteriors and the importance of doing it as a part of the value-add.
We are excited to continue this journey and cannot wait to see the final product. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will share our progress with you.
