Hilton gets Hotel Palomar back

[BigTex]

By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS

Staff Writer

krjacobs@dallasnews.com

Published: 07 August 2014 09:33 PM

Updated: 08 August 2014 10:42 AM


The Hotel Palomar, one of the most visible hotels in Dallas, has been sold and will become affiliated with the Hilton brand.

As of Wednesday, the nine-story hotel became The Highland Dallas Hotel, owned by Annapolis, Md.-based Thayer Lodging Group, Fred DeSota, an executive with the new management company, said Thursday.

Thayer is a privately held hotel investment company that was formed in 1991. The Highland is the company’s only hotel in Dallas-Fort Worth. Terms of the deal were not announced.

The new owners “saw this as a great opportunity to get into the D-FW market,” said DeSota, senior vice president of sales for Interstate Hotels & Resorts, which is now managing the hotel. “It’s a beautiful property.”

Interstate Hotels & Resorts is Thayer’s management arm. It replaces San Francisco’s exclusive Kimpton Hotels, which had operated the 198-room hotel since 2006.

Interstate also operates several D-FW hotels including the Hilton Arlington and the Sheraton Arlington.

Later this month Hilton will launch what it’s calling the “Curio Collection” — independent hotels that are not branded as Hilton properties but that will be part of the Hilton reservations and rewards points systems.

The Highland is slated to be the first “selectively hand-picked” D-FW hotel in that collection, which also is expected to include the Sam Houston Hotel in downtown Houston.

The building that houses the Palomar, at Central Expressway and Mockingbird Lane, opened in the 1960s as the nine-story Hilton Inn. The hotel was known for its lively pianists at the penthouse hot spot called Harper’s Corner and for the “tiki room” — a former Trader Vic’s Polynesian bar-restaurant.

The property, once called the Hotel Santa Fe, has changed hands several times over the years.

In 2004, Realty America Group and Behringer Harvard Funds bought the property and turned it into an upscale hotel, shopping and condo complex.

The $80 million project included a 10-story condo tower and about 25,000 square feet of lower-level retail space.

A spokesman for Behringer declined to comment Thursday.

DeSota said the Thayer purchase includes only the hotel building. The Palomar name on the residences will go away, he said, after owners there vote on a new identity.

While the new hotel owner plans to make some improvements this year, the bigger upgrades will come next year when both the guest rooms and corridors will get a makeover, said DeSota. The size, scope and budget for the project have not been determined.

Regardless of the changes in store for the decor, the hotel’s new restaurant Knife, by chef John Tesar, will stay, DeSota said, as will the spa Exhale.

With the change in command at the former Palomar, Kimpton now has only one hotel in D-FW, the Hotel Lumen near Southern Methodist University.

“We are, however, rapidly expanding in the state of Texas and do have two new hotels coming to Austin [Hotel Van Zandt] and San Antonio [Hotel Emma] that we’re very excited about,” said Kimpton spokeswoman Tami von Isakovics.

[Fitzroy]

Uh oh.