What they’re thinking: Hawkeye Hotels newest growth phase

Hawkeye Hotels, the Arkansas-born and Iowa-raised hotel company, grew during the economic downturn and acquired properties while others were selling, President Ravi Patel said. Now, it's going through another growth phase.

A company that started with Patel's parents and just one hotel now owns more than 50 in 14 states. Hawkeye has purchased or built a slate of hotels in the last two to three years, opened a new Coralville headquarters and recently started a restaurant division.

Patel has joined with his siblings and another business partner to jump into restaurants. The four have purchased Clinton Street Social Club in Iowa City and plan to open Marquee Pizzeria & Bar in Coralville.

Patel spoke with The Gazette about Hawkeye's expansion and how restaurants play into the company's plans.

Q: What's driving Hawkeye's recent growth?

A: 'We find it to be a really great time to expand the company. All of the economic indicators are off the charts. We're seeing a period in the hotel industry that has the highest-ever demand we've ever seen, the highest-ever average daily rate, the highest occupancies. It's a great time to grow. We have the team to grow.”

Q: What marks a good location for a hotel?

A: 'Old habits die fairly hard, so we actually still, anytime we go to a new city, we always look at the parking lots to see how full people are. But, nowadays there's so much more data out there. ... A lot of our decisions are driven by the location, so we want to ensure we are on the best street corner with the best supporting services, so we want restaurants, retail and other major demand generators. ... We want to see a lot of diversification in that market to ensure that if one thing backs down and there's a sequester in spending or something like that, we're still going to be OK because there's diversity in that market as well.”

Q: What's the advantage of building your own hotels?

A: 'One thing my father has always told me is, ‘Every time you're building a hotel, plan to own it for 100 years, so develop it like you're going to own it forever.' When you take that mind-set, you treat that hotel a lot more sustainably. A lot of builders do the ‘build and flip' mentality, where they'll build and sell, so maybe they're not using LED lights because they're more expensive, maybe they're not putting an extra $25,000 in to insulate the building to ensure the utility costs are lower. We put everything into these properties that's going to ensure longevity for those hotels.”

Q: Why invest in restaurants?

A: 'For us, when we're looking at doing hotels like the Hotel Fort Des Moines ... and a lot of these high-end luxury hotels, we don't want it to have your generic hotel restaurant. We've wanted to create some very inventive concepts that cater to that hotel, cater to that community and people will see and treat that restaurant like any other one in a restaurant core hub. As we were thinking about it more and more, it just made sense to create that restaurant division so we could have three, five, 10 different concepts within that structure.”

Q: Where does Hawkeye Hotels go from here?

A: 'There's a plan of growth and we keep that fairly broad on what that looks like. I don't like to box ourselves in to one strategy … There's no exit strategy. It's not like we're building this thing to sell it. We just love this business. We're all second-generation hoteliers. My hope is it passes down to a couple more generations.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8366; matthew.patane@thegazette.com