Huntington Hotel’s new owner, SF tourism improving

Huntington Hotel checks back in

You can’t manufacture a legacy, but you can certainly purchase it.

Following nearly three years of dormancy, the Huntington Hotel is revived.

Flynn Properties, a local luxury resort and hotel owner, partnered with the hotel management company Highgate to acquire the Nob Hill icon this month. The sale price has not been released, but SFGATE was told it was less than the $56.2 million mortgage the hotel’s previous owner, Woodridge Capital, owed to Deutsche Bank.

Shuttered since the onset of the pandemic, the 135-room hotel, along with its adjoining restaurant The Big 4 and spa, suffered a tumultuous financial period marred by a loan default and a tax lien against the property.

The building remains an icon in the San Francisco skyline, as the rooftop sign bearing its name remains a lasting (and impossible to replicate) icon.

“You could never in a million years get that sign like that today. And the hotel comes with it,” Greg Flynn, founder and CEO of Flynn Properties, told SFGATE. “But it needs polish. It’s a piece of art in the San Francisco skyline.”

The new owners plan to invest millions to reshape the Huntington as the epitome of a luxury hotel — returning it to its roots as a host for royalty and starlets.

“The good news is that we have an asset: It has the largest average room size in the city by a wide margin,” Flynn said. “It has a high suite mix, architectural appeal and, of course, the views. It has the bones and location to fulfill our vision. We don’t need to build anything; it’s perfect already.”

Highgate is already in discussions with Unite Here Local 2 to return its union workforce, and there’s a commitment to restore the Big 4 restaurant and spa to their beloved glory.

Flynn characterized the Huntington Hotel as an “own-forever investment” and said this project hits close to home. The native San Franciscan drives past the hotel on his commute to his office downtown and fondly recalls his meals and beverages at the Big 4.

“The experience is what people want back,” he said. “What we need to do is not screw it up.”

The plan is to reopen the hotel in 26 months, and if that comes to fruition, Memorial Day 2025 cocktails at the Big 4 are in order.

Annual SF tourism temp check

The good news is that people are coming to San Francisco and leaving with a large amount of positive feedback. A presentation from Destination Analysts at the San Francisco Travel Association’s annual conference this month offered a glimpse into the city’s reputation.

In a “visitor intercept survey” offered to 2,376 SF tourists last year, Destination Analysts found that 92% of respondents would visit the city, and their impressions of San Francisco were largely positive.

In terms of activities the respondents did while visiting, “shopping” remained in the lead. Apparently, visitors’ interest in our parks has more than doubled compared to previous surveys, while interest in dining has dipped. The negative feedback for the city — “dirty, expensive and not what it used to be” — is par for the course and likely reflects how a resident would respond to such a survey.

The bottom line is San Francisco remains a top destination in the country for visitors, but it’s still not at the volume we saw prior to 2020.

The SF Travel Association released its annual data for local tourism last week, and the narrative remains the same: We’re moving in the right direction but at a brisk pace.

According to the SF Travel Association, 21.9 million visitors came to San Francisco in 2022. It’s a 29% increase from 2021, and with that boost came tourism spending more than doubling to $7.4 billion.

These are promising statistics, but the perspectives become weary when compared to 2019, a year when San Francisco had a record 26.2 million visitors and $9.6 billion in visitor spending.

Our local tourism industry is wringing its hands as it inspires optimism for the year to come. Chinese tourism is accelerating a return; San Francisco recently broke into the list of top 10 destinations for Chinese travelers. And a consortium of local hotel associations announced they’re embarking on a hiring spree ahead of summer.

Unite Here Local 2, the union representing hotel employees, told SFGATE that about 70% of its members are back at work, and the rest remain furloughed — mostly workers in hotel food and beverage operations.

“We think this is due to a combo of lagging hotel occupancy as a group and international travel continue to recover, as well as hotels’ efforts to boost profits by reducing guest services and jobs,” wrote Ted Waechter, a spokesperson for the union, in an e-mail. “Restaurants are often the last part of a hotel to reopen, and some hotels are replacing full-service dining with limited service or grab-and-go, while others are reducing restaurants’ hours of operation.”

Union Square’s Villa Florence Hotel is now The Barnes

If you attempt to visit the website for the Villa Florence Hotel, the once Italian-inspired hotel kitty-corner to Union Square, you’re immediately directed to a page for The Barnes.

The boutique hotel is the latest iteration of accommodation to occupy the eight-story corner spot that’s been part of Union Square for over a century, starting with the Hotel Manx, which opened in the wake of the 1906 earthquake.

The slim, pillared sign protruding from the quoin now displays The Barnes, but that appears to be the sole change for the outside of the neoclassical structure. Inside, however, the owners of the Roxborough Group, LLC and AWH Partners designed each room with accents of sharp color — such as a blue denim sofa in the suite’s living room or pop art on the wall — to pop alongside a charcoal carpet.

The Barnes takes its name from the nearby Dewey Monument in Union Square, which features the Goddess of Victory statue atop the pillar (modeled after none other than the famed SF socialite Alma de Bretteville Spreckels). As “the barnes” is Old English for “young warrior,” the hotel aims to reflect the youthful vigor of a city in everlasting motion.

Along Powell Street, where chimes from trollies enter through open windows, The Barnes brings a clean slate to a legacy corner of Union Square.

InterContinental Mark Hopkins toasts a golden anniversary

Scaling 19 floors in a matter of seconds, the elevator opens into the foyer where “squadron bottles” of wishful booze are forever enshrined as a reminder that each drink could be the last, so don’t waste it on water — or vodka.

Sentimentalism was in the mood on a Wednesday at sundown in March as the InterContinental Mark Hopkins celebrated 50 years in San Francisco.

The British resort chain’s first North American property was the Mark Hopkins, and the ink dried on the contract in March 1973. To commemorate half a century of hosting San Francisco visitors and locals alike, the sky bar was abuzz with jazz from a well-dressed trio and plates of hors d’oeuvres. There was a fortunate break in the weather, which provided sharper views of the southern rim of the bay, with mountains topped in snow.

Among the announcements for the hotel are the return of concierge and room service for breakfast and dinner (luxuries suspended at the start of the pandemic) and an extensive renovation of the Peacock Court ballroom, its elegant event space. The ballroom’s redesign honors the Gilded Age, when the namesake Mark Hopkins built a 40-room Victorian fairy castle on the site, which was reduced to rubble in the 1906 earthquake. Today, the InterContinental Mark Hopkins remains a beacon on Nob Hill.

The magnificence of the hotel’s soaring edifice was reimagined in sugar and frosting and printed on celebratory cookies that were passed to each attendee of the soiree. More decorative than delicious, at least one cookie was pocketed for later as the elevator, packed with gentry, slid between floors to the lobby below.