RREAF Holdings, a privately held, vertically integrated real estate investment and development firm, has formed MxR Hospitality, a strategic partnership with hospitality investor Philip McNeill Sr. The collaboration aims to develop extended-stay hotels nationwide and create a hospitality management company dedicated exclusively to the extended-stay segment.
“Our experience with third-party property management in our multifamily portfolio showed us firsthand the challenges of maintaining quality and consistency,” said Eric Watts, director, extended-stay, RREAF Holdings. “We created our in-house property management firm, RR Living, to address these challenges, and we saw similar gaps in the extended-stay sector, where these assets are often underserved. With MxR Hospitality, our goal is to bring the same commitment to operational excellence and best-in-class management to extended-stay hotels, both within our portfolio and across the industry.”
Among his many career accomplishments, McNeill was one of the first franchise owners of a Hampton Inn—opening the second location in its history in Little Rock, AR, in 1984—and was, at one time, the largest franchise owner of Hampton properties. McNeill also served as chairman/CEO for the publicly traded Equity Inns Inc. real estate investment trust from the company’s founding in 1993 to January 2005. He has also held the position of non-executive chairman of Equity Inns Inc. at the time of its sale in 2007 to a real estate fund of Goldman Sachs for $2.2 billion, with a portfolio of 138 hotels.
“Phillip McNeill, Sr. is a trailblazer in the hotel industry, known for his investment acumen and belief in the importance of long-term partnerships based on mutual respect and benefit,” said Kip Sowden, chairman/CEO, RREAF Holdings. “We see excellent potential and a strong operating model for economy extended-stay properties in today’s marketplace.”
