The Metropolitan Airports Commission has sold about 3 acres of vacant land near the Mall of America in Bloomington's South Loop district for the development of a 151-room Hyatt House hotel.
The MAC sold four parcels it owns along Old Shakopee Road southeast of the mall for a little more than $1 million to Iowa-based Hawkeye Hotels and partner JR Hospitality, which offices in the Twin Cities. According to an electronic certificate of real estate value, the sale closed earlier this month. The group also purchased for $1.3 million a 1.6-acre piece of land south of the properties, which was owned by SkyWater Technology Foundry.
The hotel would be the first Hyatt House, a "residential-style" extended stay hotel, in Minnesota.
"The biggest thing is the proximity to the Mall of America, the proximity to MSP Airport, the growth of development happening near the Mall of America," said Jay Bhakta, a managing partner for JR Hospitality, in an interview Wednesday. "There really aren't too many new upscale, extended products there to begin with, and the ones that are there are fairly old."
The timeline is still being finalized, but construction could begin as early as December or later in the spring depending on the weather, Bhakta said. The hotel would likely open in the spring of 2020.
There had been discussions about another hotel that would service airline crews slated for the location, but that deal fell through, Bhakta said.
JR Hospitality and Hawkeye Hotels have been busy partnering together on several recent Twin Cities projects. A few days ago, the group closed on the purchase of a site in the Hennepin Avenue theater district in downtown Minneapolis where it plans to construct a Cambria Hotel and Fairfield Inn & Suites side by side.
Cushman & Wakefield said about 7,200 rooms were in some stage of planning or development as of this summer, but a slowdown in new development is projected as new supply is being absorbed and construction and financing costs continue to rise.
