McWhinney participating in Salt Lake City deal

LOVELAND — McWhinney Real Estate Services Inc. will redevelop five acres in a growing part of Salt Lake City with two others. A McWhinney affiliate raised $10.92 million this month for work in the city.

The plan follows McWhinney’s model of working with local parties, in this case RL Group in Salt Lake City, and Denver-based hospitality investor-manager Sage Hospitality Resources LLC. McWhinney and Sage co-developed Maven Hotel at Dairy Block in Denver and The Elizabeth in Old Town Fort Collins.

RL Group bought the 394-room Red Lion hotel from Denver-based hotel chain RLH Corp. in November 2019 for $33 million, trade journal reports said. The hotel parent was going asset-light in a greater focus on franchising its eight flags; it has about 900 locations. RL Group is an investor consortium led by Ron Heffernan, Justin Earl and Thomas Lee.

One of two former hotel towers will become 184 micro apartments to be delivered by the end of 2022. Amenities include a 13th-floor rooftop lounge, co-working space and a fitness center. The joint venture didn’t give specifics for the second tower and remaining land.

Kirsty Greer, a McWhinney senior vice president, said the overall result will be “an energetic mixed-use community in Salt Lake City’s historic Granary District.”

The Granary District is an older industrial area on the edge of downtown Salt Lake City. It’s seen a good deal of development recently under the federal Opportunity Zone program, which confers tax benefits to investors.

This is McWhinney’s first Utah project; it’s redeveloping a portion of downtown Provo into mixed-uses as well. It has developments in six states.

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