Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. intends to forfeit the 258-room W San Diego to its lenders after its efforts to reach a compromise on the luxury hotel’s $65 million securitized mortgage failed.
Sunstone, a real-estate investment trust that owns 43 hotels, bought the W for $96 million in 2006 from a group led by developer Gatehouse Capital Corp. Since then, the slumping performance of the W San Diego and the broader hotel market has made supporting that mortgage a challenge for Sunstone.
Foreclosures and forfeitures of hotels are becoming commonplace in this recession, though a public REIT turning over a high-profile, luxury property still is rare. Default rates on securitized mortgages backed by hotels have risen sharply as travelers have cut back, occupancies and revenues have tanked and, subsequently, hotel owners have run into difficulty making their debt payments. To wit, 3.16% of securitized mortgages backed by hotels now are delinquent on payments as compared to just 0.44% at this time last year, according to Trepp LLC.
A recent report by the special servicer of the W’s mortgage, Centerline Serving Inc., noted that the W San Diego since 2007 has failed to generate enough monthly income to cover both its operating costs and its interest payments. Sunstone has been covering the shortfall since 2007 to keep the loan out of default, but it opted this month to stop doing so.
The W San Diego has suffered partly because of the national decline in business and leisure travel. Additionally, in its downtown location it isn’t within convenient walking distance from San Diego’s Gaslamp District or the San Diego Convention Center, . said John Arabia, an analyst with real estate research company Green Street Advisors Inc.
The whole Hotel Industry is going to reel from this.
The more I think about this, these “boutique party hotels” (mostly phony and corporate anyways) are really in trouble.
Their target demographic 25-39 or so, is really hurting of liquid cash these days. Striped shirts are toe tagged. Plastic tiaras and lame “girls nights out” aren’t going to cut it.
The 40 to 50 monied crowd, or older couples with money won’t go to these places (too loud, too frugal etc).
Any 25 to 39 year olds with half a brain are going to skip eating and partying at these places because the food quality and girl quality is so low and price points are so high. (You can’t drag me there unless it’s a special event or they start importing Eastern Block and South American Models).
I think its game over for the ubiquitous “Corporate Cool” of the last 6 years. (Thank Goodness). Unless they decide to legalize prostitution and turn these things into High-End Brothels.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Mickey Factz featuring The Cool Kids “Rockin N Rollin”
One of the most effective moves you can do at a Gentleman’s Club is called “Lobster Trapping” in the G’s argot. This also works especially well in a Down Economy.
Basically, Lobster Trapping is going to a Gentleman’s Club early in the night, let’s say 10pm, and post up. You only want to stay about an hour or so.
Wale- “Penthouse Anthem”
During that hour, you want to do the typical G things we all know and love: roll in Dolo, suited down, flash CASH, smoke jacks and tell lies like OJ on trial. You know, International Playboy type stuff. Tell girls you are only staying for a “little while” because your friend is opening a new dope Wine Bar or something. Display mad swag.
Which for me, is no bother since I got more Game than Parker Brothers, Can’t Lose like Parker Lewis, and drink more wine than Robert Parker.
Basically, make the Exotic or Exotics crestfallen that they can’t roll with you. This is the setting the “trap” part of Lobster Trapping. When they beg you to come back, give them your Appypolly loggys and reply “Maybe”.
Next you want to shoot to some kind of civilian lounge or nightclub for a while and crunch some civilian numbers. Maybe some waitress girls, Nightlife Princesses, Platinum Diggers or swoop a promoter’s or DJ’s girlfriend. Spend about an hour and half or so doing this (these time estimates are based on a Typical West Coast time schedule. Las Vegas or Miami Beach would obviously be different). This will give the Exotic Dancers just enough time to miss you, for the Washington Apple shots to take hold, Beeks to have effect and for “regular guy” to make you look good.
After that non-sense, shoot back to the Gentleman’s Club. It’s time to check the “harvesting” of your “traps” for Exotics. (And I don’t mean that Super fly Model style Exotic Dancer I know from The Rhino in Las Vegas named Exotica, real name Cindy, either).
Girls will be all over you like lobsters on rotting, decaying Dover Sole. Or a rival you delivered down to Davey Jones Locker.
Close Artistically.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
A Typical Tuesday Night in Southern California
“California’s like a beautiful, wild girl on heroin …Who’s high as a kite, thinkin’ she’s on top of the world, not knowing she’s dying even if you show her the marks.”
Its 9:30 pm when I roll Dolo in the Southern California “party sushi” joint like the Fly Girl Racker, Bean Stacker, Zippo Clacker, friendly neighborhood International Playboy you know and love.
The Scene breaks down as it usually does:
Multiple tables of Girls with fake boobs partying for “Jenny’s”, “Sara’s” or whoever’s birthday, a few weesh guys in Ed Hardy shirts, I’m guessing a few “Reality Stars” from their hollow, insecure posturing, and some hipster cats in fedoras. Maybe a few actors. Who cares, I am sure their movies are wack.
Not bad, since Me against this type of competition is like Obama going against Hillary.
Especially, considering that I didn’t leave anything to chance and I am dressed Sharper than Health Care:
My President is Black and so is my one button Gucci bespoke suit with peaked lapels and Cookie Monster blue interior. My shirt and Brioni pocket square are Baby Blue as if my name was Gerber, and I am not talking about Rande either.
My Bontoni loafers: c’est si bon and my E. Marinella tie: magnifique, and of course, I have the Brushed Chrome Desert Eagle for any sashimi style Kobe Beef.
Pockets: Greener than “energy tech” and Bankroll: thicker than Azerbaijan “daisy-chained” spot crude oil.
My Game: sicker than Hong Kong Chicken Flu and I got The John the Conqueroo.
I am by eons the dopest, sharpest dressed, most brutally handsome cat in the spot, but Hollywood has never come up with a movie star that is half-IRA, half-ETA so the girls in the party sushi joint have no frame of reference for me.
I then exchange glances with the target: A Orange County fake boobs blonde wearing a dress from South Coast Plaza and shoes from Fred Segal no doubt. Her boobs are Faker than the Horsehead that Tom Hagen puts in that bed.
She is not some fly Estonian Model Girl or the daughter of Hungary’s richest businessman, but sometimes you have to work with what the Nightlife Gods have given you.
I then float, like a Mardi Gras parade, to her table of three of her girlfriends, drinking sake, and get ready to sting like a Mayweather Jab (Roger or Floyd Jr., doesn’t matter which one). Two of the other girls look identical to her, the fourth: weesh. I pull up a chair holding a far superior bottle of Nigori.
I then introduce myself as the DJ is spinning some wack crap that every single other person in the joint is loving. (Doesn’t anyone have Special Ed’s “I Got it Made” on wax anymore?)
Special Ed – I Got It Made
I then wave to the DJ (who I have carefully cultivated a “functional” acquaintance with over the last few months) who gives me a “finger point” and a smile back.
Instead of “Defeating this DJ”, I have “locked down” this DJ simply for him to give me high-fives and finger points so I don’t seem “weird” to girls when I roll in the sushi joint Doloto pick up girls.
I then yap to the girls about how the live lobster sashimi is the best thing on the menu, which, of course, they have never tried. When I describe it, one of them says it sounds “gross” as different waitresses say hello to me and I get a few “finger points” from the sushi chefs.
The Girls tell me they come here for “the california rolls”. Another one of the girls tells me that she loves “the rice”.
I roll my eyes, but I have been through this literally a million times before so I keep calm and don’t start ridiculing the girls or stab myself in the eye with a chopstick.
They then ask me how I know the DJ and I yap about how I have known him forever and blah blah blah. Topics fire back and forth at a rapid fire pace as we down the bottle of Nigori.
The Girls tell me The Hard Rock in Las Vegas is their favorite place to travel. I tell them The Hard Rock is wack. They ask me where I would love to vacation next and I say “Seychelles or Mauritius” and they look at me like I am speaking a foreign language. I ask them if they have been to France, and they said they haven’t but they heard people are “rude” there. When the girls ask what I do for fun, I am tempted to tell them I have been experimenting with Voodoo to help me swoop even more girls than I already do and to destroy my rivals, but thankfully the owner comes by to shake my hand.
Junior Wells – The Hoodoo Man (1966)
The owner then gives me another bottle of Nigori (pro-bono) and the girls ask me how I have known him and I lie, “we go back a long time” as I think the owner is weesh, and barely know him, but I remain friendly with him for situations such as these.
The girls now think I am the coolest thing they have ever met.
But then again, I have paid the cost to be the Boss, so it shouldn’t be a shocker that they are loving me like Ugg Boots and Mac Gloss.
Styles P- The Key
After polishing off the Nigori, I invite the girls to another nightclub where I know the owners to get in “libre”.
On the way to the club (located a few blocks from my crib, coincidentally or is it strategically?) I light up a smoke with a dope “reverse” Zippo Clack, that, I invented when I was 12 years old. None of the girls notice how dope I light the cigarette but one of the girls says she “hates smoking”. “Smoking is so gross…and so unhealthy”, says the most out of shape and unhealthy member of the girl crew.
I ignore both of them, and keep “Pied Pipering” the girls. The main “Orange County blonde fake boobs girl wearing a dress from South Coast Plaza” says she “loves smoking when she drinks” and takes a drag off my cancer stick. I notice she doesn’t inhale.
Almost to the club, I spark up a another smoke with a snap of my Zippo and interrupt the yapping from the girls by saying “Hey!” so they pay attention to the dope “snap light move”, but it gets zero reaction.
We skip the line like an old Run-D.M.C. record and enter Le Club.
I spend the next hour with more mind-numbing conversation, winning over the group, and deflecting “SliverBack Style” some beta male Ex-Mortgage Brokers in I am guessing, Christian Audigier shirts (One beta-ex-mortgage guy I make scamper off simply by saying, “Did you know there are free Red Bull and Vodkas at the back bar?”).
I then invite the “Orange County blonde fake boobs girl wearing a dress from South Coast Plaza” girl back to my crib for Champagne. (Really just a $9 bottle of Processco, but she can’t tell the difference).
After swooping her till 3:30 am, getting more two lips than a florist* and shimmying her out the door to her cab, I can only wonder:
Was this night worth it?
Probably not.
Even International Playboys win some and lose some.
But most likely, I will do it again next Tuesday.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life http://www.thegmanifesto.com
*In case you are stuck. Blower = Two lips = Tulips. Get it?
The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows in our room at the new Wynn Encore provides a distressingly clear picture of what’s going on in Las Vegas these days. To the south, there’s a casino project that has ground to a halt, half built, its steel skeleton an outline of a multibillion-dollar dream gone hungry. Across the street, there’s a Modernist chapel, a lonely vigil of virtue on the Strip — people seek salvation elsewhere in this town. Look west toward the mountains and you can trace the Vegas real estate developers’ dash toward the horizon with building projects. Now as far as you can drive, there are foreclosed homes and empty new developments offering come-ons to prospective buyers.
The Encore, which opened officially in January, stands like a luxurious monument of defiance to the recession. It is not; it cannot. Wynn Resorts boss Steve Wynn has cut room rates to as little as $169 a night — the original projected rates were something on the order of $350 — but he won’t cut service. That act of defiance means the Encore is a pretty astonishing value for any visitors in the mood to treat themselves to a Las Vegas fling in these tough times. The $2 billion, 2,034-room project adjoins the Wynn — the hotels are connected by a retail alley — completing Steve Wynn’s most recent move to reposition the Las Vegas mind-set. The man who brought you exploding volcanoes (the Mirage), pirate ships (Treasure Island) and over-the-top light shows, not to mention a zillion dollars’ worth of fine art (the Bellagio) has now fully assembled his antidote to overstimulation, which began with the Wynn Las Vegas in 2005. Here is a different kind of sensibility — dare we say classy? — a resort with gaming, rather than a gaming resort.
At ground level, the Encore, like its older sibling, is still all business, though Wynn had his decorator, Roger P. Thomas, nod to the Las Vegas of the past. The casino floor is dominated by a color that the company says used to be standard in casinos in the bad old good old days — just call it whorehouse red. But it works here, with the brilliant red chandeliers, the whole effect muted a bit by judicious use of off-white fabric. The other delicate touches are cast, oddly enough, by natural light streaming in from either end of the casino floor. And not only through windows — the main entrance to the Encore casino takes you through a lush, plant-and-tree-filled atrium over three stories tall. There’s a certain amount of whimsy at play here too: for instance, the brightly colored butterflies inlaid into the mosaic floors. It makes the contemplation of losing at the tables almost pleasant.
In an interview with nightlife king Steve Lewis, Scott Osman Breaks it down:
Steve Lewis: What do you think of the club scene in New York City right now?
Scott Osman: I think it sucks. The whole bottle service thing ruined nightlife. After my experience at Marquee, I was dumbfounded. I’m sitting there running lights (and there’s no fog machine because of the new requirements for the fire protection system) and there are all these people who feel so entitled. We had 1,000 kids at N.A.S.A every week, and no one ever caused a fight—different people from different backgrounds getting together and nobody fought—and these people go out and they think they’re extra special because they’ve got a bottle. But aside from the bottle service problem, the other issue relating to why things are a little slower now is that you have these DJ agents, like Paul Morris from AM Only, and they literally would take these DJs out of our rave scene that were getting paid like $500 to $1,000, and they would add zeroes. Managers are obviously going to promote the artists as best as they can, but in doing so, they shot themselves in their own feet. It’s simple math. My friends, Scott Henry, all of them—they’re making a lot of money, they have nice houses, and that’s fine for them—but at the same time, they out price themselves out of the rave market. Plus, the raves are getting busted, and you have to move the DJs into the clubs, and the clubs could afford to pay the deposits, so the supply and the demand kept up, but it just changed the industry, and so it killed the rave scene in a way. If you’re a DJ, it all boils down to whether can you pull 100 people into a club, and then get paid. That’s just supply and demand … its like battle of the bands. You have to bring people.
Also:
Steve Lewis: So you started out as a tech person in the club and picked up information as you went along that eventually helped you to become an owner?
Scott Osman: Yeah, I was producing parties to help promote my light shows, and it was a symbiotic relationship. And then N.A.S.A. was obviously in the movie Kids—Chloe Sevigny was my coat-check door girl and Harmony Korine would come there and Harold Hunter, and all the other Kids.
Steve Lewis: Harold Hunter was an actor in Kids and he passed away a couple years ago.
Scott Osman: I actually saw Leonardo DiCaprio at the Inaugural Ball, and I brought it up. I asked him if he went to Harold’s funeral because he knew Harold from that whole little circle, but he was really busy looking for his cufflinks that he had dropped, so he couldn’t really talk to me.
