Extended stay flag finds its plot in Reno

Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham is one of the fastest-growing hotel brands in the U.S. and Canada, and the flag will open its first property in Reno in the summer of 2025.

Sandpiper Hospitality of Richmond, Virginia, is developing the Echo Suites brand at 545 Double Eagle Court in South Meadows. The 42,661-square-foot, four-story building will be the third hotel property in the Truckee Meadows for Sandpiper, said Carter Rise Jr., vice president of development.

“Reno is a market we are really high on,” Rise said. “We have over 30 hotels in our portfolio, and a lot more that we manage third-party. We are always on the lookout for new opportunities, and (Reno) is an area we have been aggressively targeting by looking for land that would work for another property.

“Reno is an MSA that is growing, there is a lot of tech investment going in, and a lot of business development in the extended-stay space. Anywhere there is development and ground-up construction, that is a great demand driver for us,” he added.

Sandpiper also owns the Courtyard by Marriott at 6855 S. Virginia St., and last November it opened an Extended Stay America Premier Suites at the corners of East Lincoln Way and Howard Drive in Sparks. Occupancy at the new Sparks property has been excellent, Rise said, which lends confidence to developing additional extended-stay properties across the region.

“It gives us proof of concept,” he said. “The plans for (the new south Reno hotel) were in motion long before we actually opened up the Extended Stay America, but seeing how well it’s performed has certainly boosted our confidence and honestly has us thinking what’s next after this one on Double Eagle Court.”

Finding developable land, however, is getting ever more challenging in Greater Reno-Sparks. Rise said Sandpiper typically seeks a minimum of two acres when developing a new hotel property, but it could only secure a 1.5-acre parcel in South Meadows. The company had to scale back the size of the hotel as a result of the smaller land acquisition.

“Typically, we are looking for two acres to build a 124-room hotel, but due to site constraints we can only build 100 rooms, which is below the prototype of Echo Suites. But it was just too good a piece of land to pass up.

Carter Rise Jr.

“More rooms would have been a great thing to have here, and we aggressively worked with our architects and civil engineers to find a way to make that happen, but we were just constrained by the size of the parcel,” Rise added.

Ron Cobb, partner with CPNV of Reno, assisted Sandpiper with the acquisition of the land at Double Eagle Court.

General contractor Metcalf Builders has already broken ground on the $10 million Echo Suites project. Rise said Sandpiper cast a wide net when looking for potential general contractors before settling on the longtime Northern Nevada company, which last year relocated from Carson City to the Truckee Meadows to better serve its customers in Reno and Sparks.

“We interviewed a number of companies and had four of them submit bids,” Rise said. “This is our first time working with Metcalf, but they came highly recommended by a lot of folks that we have worked with on past projects.”

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts launched the Echo Suites flag in 2022, and it’s quickly become the hotel franchising company’s fastest-growing brand, Wyndham said in a news release last July. The first Echo Suites property opened in Spartansburg, S.C., in 2023. Rise told NNBW that Sandpiper has two additional Echo Suites projects in development in Virginia and would potentially add another property in Northern Nevada if it could find the right parcel of land.

“Reno is not an easy place to find land,” he said. “We are looking to be opportunistic, and we certainly think there is more room in Reno for additional extended-stay supply.

“Sandpiper has worked closely with Wyndham and other hotel developers to get Echo off the ground,” he added. “We are excited that the hotel in Reno is one of the first dozen or so properties; it will be a great addition in the extended-stay space.”

The Echo Suites flag isn’t a luxury upscale brand but sits more on the lower end of the midscale brand, Rise said. Clientele typically include business travelers and people in the “gray-collar” space, such as traveling construction teams, nurses, people in town for corporate training, or those working on long-term contracts, Rise said.

“The brand is growing, and extended-stay travelers are going to become very familiar with it in a few years,” he said.

Krishna Paliwal, head of architecture, design & construction of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said in a statement that guests around the country seek affordable and comfortable long-term stays, and Echo Suites fills that need.

“Broadening the footprint of this brand is in line with our mission of making hotel travel possible for all, and we look forward to adding this hotel to our portfolio in the coming years,” Paliwal said.