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ProcessSix stages, one team, one line of accountability
What you receive at each stage, what we need from you, and the mistake that costs the most at that particular point. Approvals, rather than construction, usually set the opening date.
3–4 months
8–18 months
14–24 months
16 weeks, then ongoing
Feasibility — establish whether it is worth building
Almost any site can carry a hotel. The question is whether the hotel that site supports earns enough to justify what it costs to put up, at the interest rate you will actually pay.
We start with demand rather than with the site. Who generates room nights in this catchment, in which months, at what rate, and who is already capturing them? Corporate, group, government, leisure and crew each behave differently, and a catchment that looks strong on a map often turns out to be one employer and a highway.
From there: a competitive set benchmarked against STR data, a segmentation and rate build, a development budget priced to current construction costs in that province, and a ten-year cash flow with sensitivity on rate, occupancy, cost and debt. The recommendation at the end is explicit, and it is sometimes that the project should not proceed.
You receive
- Market and demand study by segment
- Competitive set analysis and forward supply pipeline
- ADR, occupancy and RevPAR forecast
- Development budget and ten-year cash flow
- Sensitivity analysis, break-even and return metrics
- A written recommendation, go or no-go
We need from you
- Site survey, zoning and title particulars
- Your capital frame and debt assumptions
- Target return and intended hold period
Concept and brand — decided before design, not after
The brand decision drives the construction budget, because brand standards land in the specification. It therefore belongs here.
Branded or independent is modelled on your own numbers: distribution and loyalty contribution and lender comfort on one side; franchise fees compounding on gross revenue, brand-standard capital cost, and a property improvement plan waiting at renewal on the other. For a hundred-key select-service hotel in a secondary Ontario market the answer is usually a flag. For a fifty-key resort it frequently is not.
Where a flag is right, we shortlist the franchisors whose development interest actually matches your market, approach them, and sit with you through term-sheet negotiation — area of protection, term, key money, performance test, liquidated damages, and precisely which standards will show up in your construction budget.
The room and area programme comes out of the financial model at this stage, not out of the architect's first sketch. Key count, key mix, food and beverage seats, meeting space and back of house are all sized to what the operating plan can carry.
You receive
- Concept book and market positioning
- Branded against independent, modelled
- Franchisor shortlist and term-sheet comparison
- Negotiation support to signature
- Room, area and back-of-house programme
We need from you
- Hold-period intention
- Brand preferences or exclusions
- Capital cost ceiling
Design and approvals — the stage that sets your opening date
On most hotel projects, getting permission takes longer than building. Plan the programme around that, not around construction.
We write the operating brief that your architect designs to: circulation for staff as well as guests, the laundry and refuse route, receiving and the loading bay, where housekeeping stages, how the kitchen is supplied without crossing a guest corridor. These are the decisions that determine payroll for thirty years, and they are almost never on an architect's brief unless somebody puts them there.
Then we review every drawing set against that brief, coordinate the approvals path with your consultant team — rezoning or minor variance where needed, site plan approval, building permit, accessibility and building code compliance — and run the tender when the documentation is ready.
Value engineering happens here too, and the test we apply is simple: does the saving cost rate? Reducing corridor finishes does not. Reducing the window module does, permanently.
You receive
- Operating and area brief for the design team
- Drawing review at each set, against operations
- Approvals programme and consultant coordination
- Value engineering that protects rate
- Tender package, bid analysis, award recommendation
We need from you
- Architect of record and consultant appointments
- Stage sign-offs, on time
- Confirmed construction financing
Construction — budget and schedule are held here, or lost here
We sit on the owner's side of the table throughout. It is not in our interest for the scope of works to grow, which is exactly why change-order review, quantity verification and tendering belong with us rather than with whoever is building.
Practically that means: monthly site walks against the programme, change orders priced and challenged before they are approved, cash flow reconciled to the lender's draw schedule, FF&E and OS&E procured and sequenced to arrive when the floors are ready for them, and a monthly owner report that states plainly where the project is against budget and schedule and which risks have appeared since the last one.
Pre-opening starts in parallel during the final six to nine months. A hotel that waits for substantial completion before hiring a general manager opens late and sells nothing in its first quarter.
You receive
- Monthly progress, cost and risk report
- Change-order review and budget tracking
- Draw-schedule reconciliation for the lender
- FF&E and OS&E procurement and logistics
- Quality and brand-standard inspection
- Snagging and warranty register at handover
We need from you
- Draw schedule and lender reporting requirements
- Timely change-order decisions
Pre-opening — on opening day the hotel should already be selling
Sixteen weeks, and every one of them matters. Standard operating procedures written for this hotel rather than lifted from a binder. A general manager and department heads recruited early enough to hire their own teams. The property management system, channel manager, payment stack and revenue tooling configured, integrated and tested — not switched on the week before.
Distribution opens months ahead of the doors. Booking windows for corporate and group business run far longer than leisure, so a hotel that starts selling at handover has already lost its first two quarters of the segments that pay best.
Licensing runs alongside: liquor licence, food premises approval, business licence, fire approval and occupancy. These have lead times that do not compress, and they are a common reason otherwise finished hotels sit dark.
You receive
- Department-level standard operating procedures
- Recruited and trained opening team
- PMS, channel, payment and revenue systems live
- Rate structure and distribution open ahead of opening
- Opening-year budget and sales plan
- Soft-opening plan and readiness review
We need from you
- Approved pre-opening budget
- Corporate, licensing and insurance decisions
Operation — from here it comes down to one number
RevPAR index against the competitive set. Everything else is a means to it.
Revenue management, sales, food and beverage and cost control, run as one operation with one report at the end of the month. It follows USALI — the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, the reporting format hotels everywhere are measured in — so your lender, your accountant and any future buyer can read it without a covering note.
Our base fee sits on gross revenue and our incentive fee on gross operating profit. If the asset underperforms, that lands on us as well as on you — which is the only fee structure worth signing.
- Monthly profit and loss with variance commentary
- Annual operating budget and capital plan
- Revenue, channel and comp-set index reporting
- Guest satisfaction and online reputation
- Annual operational and financial audit
You can join at any stage — and stop at any stage
Tell us which stage you are at. We will tell you what we would do first, what it would cost and how long it would take.