Oct. 20–Hawkeye Hotels, a hospitality company owned by the Patel family, has added the Comfort Suites Hotel & Convention Center in Burlington to its growing number of U.S. facilities.
Hawkeye Hotels purchased the hotel for an undisclosed amount from ORE Inc., a subsidiary of McFarland State Bank of McFarland, Wis. The bank acquired Comfort Suites at a Des Moines County sheriff’s sale in January as it provided the only bid in winning an assigned judgment of $5.2 million. McFarland State Bank had foreclosed on the property, run by a group of local investors under the name Burlington Area Hospitality, in the spring of 2012.
“We are just excited to take over this asset,” said Ravi Patel, president of Hawkeye Hotels. “We’ve had community ties for over 20 years.”
The Burlington-based hospitality company also owns two other Burlington hotels — Fairfield Inn & Suites By Marriott at 1213 N. Roosevelt Ave., and Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites at 1605 N. Roosevelt Ave. The acquisition of Comfort Suites brings the number of hotels owned by Hawkeye Hotels to more than 35, plus the company has partnerships in another 20 hotels.
Patel said any time there is an ownership change, some upgrades typically are made to the hotel.
“We make sure the hotels are taken care of,” Patel said. “We will be redoing a lot of furniture and fixtures.”
He also said new carpet, wall paper and decor is in the plans for the Burlington hotel at 1780 Stonegate Center Drive.
Hawkeye Hotels plans to continue to lease the space for Peaches Cafe and Steakhouse to Don Sheedy.
Patel said hotels are the company’s forte, not restaurants, and he doesn’t expect any changes to Peaches.
“We like to work with current personnel,” Patel said of the hotel staff. “We created a good relationship with management.”
Between 40 and 50 employees work at Comfort Suites. Among the company’s family of hotels, Hawkeye Hotels employs more than 1,800 people.
Some of Hawkeye Hotels’ other facilities have meeting rooms and convention areas, but not of the size of Comfort Suites’ convention space.
“We are excited about it,” Patel said. “We are going to aim to drive more traffic to Burlington.”
With three brands of hotels in Burlington alone, Patel believes the company can accommodate more customers.
“Now we have more efficiencies between our hotels,” he said.
Another new aspect of the company is the creation of Patel Construction within the last two months.
“It makes sense for us to do our own construction,” Patel said.
Hawkeye Hotels will be breaking ground on three hotels in the next 60 days, with new facilities being built in Cedar Rapids, Columbus, Ohio, and West Virginia.
The company already has hired some construction workers. Rajkumar Patel, Ravi’s brother, will be a big part of Patel Construction’s efforts.
“We will use a lot of local contractors,” Patel said of the company’s construction projects.
The main focus of Patel Construction will be on building new hotels rather than remodeling existing facilities.
Hawkeye Hotels also recently moved its Cedar Rapids office to Iowa City. The company was founded in 1982, with its first hotel located in Mena, Ark. The company has hotels in at least 10 states.
