Developer to begin construction on 3 West Valley extended stay hotels this year

Article originally posted on AZ Central on September 23, 2024

A hotel developer is bringing a brand of extended stay hotels to the Phoenix market and plans to eventually build 12, with a few expected to break ground this year.

West77 Partners will be the developer, general contractor and long-term owner of the hotels, called LivAway Suites. West77 has offices in Bellevue Washington and Salt Lake City and is in the process of opening a Phoenix office, Dan Barrett, president of the company, said.

Barrett said the company will break ground on sites in Surprise, Tolleson and Glendale this year, with plans to start construction in Tucson next year. Eventually, he said, the company expects the market to be able to sustain about 12 of the hotels. The company is hiring now for a field superintendent for the first project, Barrett said.

“We think there is a tremendous amount of demand for economy extended stay,” he said. Most of the sites the company is seeking are in suburban submarkets where there is a lot of growth, he said.

“We like to be in suburban locations with a lot of amenities like a grocery store,” he said. “People stay for multiple weeks, so they want to be able to go to the store.”

Total build time for each hotel is expected to take between 12 and 14 months, Barrett said, so the first LivAway Suites projects could open in late 2025.

Many of the customers that the brand caters to are workers on temporary assignments, like construction workers, travel nurses, people relocating for jobs or people staying for an extended trip, like snowbirds.

The units are “studio apartment-style,” Barrett said, and each has a full kitchen. The hotels are usually four stories with about 126 rooms on about two acres of land, he said.