By Corina Vanek | Phoenix Business Journal
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit the hospitality industry harder than almost any other, and faced with an affordable housing crisis in Arizona, some real estate firms are looking to transform hotels into apartments.
“One of our clients is very entrepreneurial and had the opportunity to purchase a hotel and convert it to affordable housing,” Mark Schilling, senior vice president at Phoenix-based MEB Management Services said.
Schilling’s client, Scottsdale-based 79th Street LLC, bought the former Hampton Suites at 2601 N. Crownpointe Drive in Prescott Valley, and is now in the process of converting the hotel suites into affordable, short-term housing.
Each of the rooms in the hotels were suites, but did not have full kitchens, so part of the adaptive reuse project has been adding a kitchen sink, stove top and other kitchen features, and creating a small seating area for dining. The team also added sliding barn doors to create more separation between the rooms in the unit.
All of the units in the apartment, now called The View at Prescott Valley, will be one-bedroom, one-bathroom units, and the renovation is nearing 50% complete at the 4-story hotel. Some units have already completed renovation, and Schilling said they have been leased by tenants almost as soon as they have been completed and made available.
He said the full building conversion is expected to be completed by the end of October or early November.
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