The NHIF Spring 2025 Meeting
The Northwest Hotel Investment Forum is a place where:
- Stakeholders learn about trends affecting hotel investment, ownership and development.
- Equity, debt, management, brands, and developers find each other.
- Stakeholders learn about opportunities in the region and elsewhere.
- Investors, owners and developers who are new to hotels make industry connections.
THE NHIF SPRING 2025 MEETING
Thursday, April 3, 2025, 4:00-7:30 pm
The Hilton Garden Inn Seattle/Bellevue
10777 NE 10th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004
AGENDA:
3:45-4:00 pm – Registration and Check-in
4:00-4:55 pm – Opening Networking Reception
Refreshments and light appetizers
Reconnect with regional and national industry colleagues. Learn from each other about deal opportunities and projects in the pipeline. Whether you’re equity, debt, brand, management, development, or ownership, build the relationships that will help you achieve your objectives.
5:00-6:45 pm – Presentation and Panel Discussion
Short Program—Hotel Performance. This presentation will provide current information and data on hotel performance and transactions.
Presenters:
Michael Stathokostopoulos, Senior Director of Hospitality Analytics, CoStar Group (Los Angeles, CA). At CoStar, Michael identifies industry trends and develops market insights for several of the top 25 hotel markets on performance, pipeline, and transaction activity. Michael has over fifteen years of experience in real estate transaction advisory and valuation for financial reporting across all major asset types, with a particular focus on hotels, advising clients throughout the lifecycle of their real estate investments. CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces. STR (acquired by Costar in October 2019) is the hospitality industry’s unparalleled information gatherer and supplier, providing global data benchmarking, analytics, and marketplace insights. www.costar.com; www.strglobal.com.
Mark Lukens, Managing Director, LWHA (Seattle, WA; San Diego, CA). Mark has over 25 years of experience in hospitality real estate and holds the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute. LWHA provides advisory, valuation, feasibility, investment counseling, asset management, and transactional services focused exclusively on hotels, resorts, gaming properties, and conference center assets worldwide. www.whospitalityadvisors.com.
Centerpiece Program: “C-PACE Has Matured—Time for a Deep Dive”. We’ve seen CPACE coming for the last 15 years, and it is now ready for prime time. Over 35 states have passed laws enabling CPACE, and an increasing number of senior lenders understand the financing and are willing to accept it. Hotel developers now need to understand fully how CPACE works, how it fits into the capital stack, how to find and negotiate it, and how it is enforced. Our world-class experts on CPACE will take us on a deep dive.
Moderator:
Irvin Sandman, Principal – Attorney, Sandman Savrann PLLC (Seattle, WA). With over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Irvin has served as lead counsel for hotel clients in thousands of hotel matters and transactions regionally, nationally and internationally, including hotel developments, acquisitions and dispositions, financial and entity structuring, management and franchise agreements, operational matters, and dispute resolution. He is the 2008 recipient of the Anthony Marshall Award for lasting contributions to hospitality law, is the editor-in-chief of the Washington State Hospitality Law Manual, Third Edition, and is recognized by Best Lawyers in America® in the category of Leisure and Hospitality Law. Sandman Savrann is a national law firm devoted to the hospitality industry. The Firm is recognized a Tier 1 law firm by Best Law Firms® in the category of Leisure and Hospitality. Through its Associated Firms, which serve as Sandman Savrann’s departments, the Sandman Savrann team includes over 1,400 attorneys nationwide, delivering comprehensive, cost-effective counsel for regional, national, and international hotel companies and owners. www.sandmansavrann.com
Panelists:
Ron Adachi, Managing Director, PACE Equity, LLC (San Francisco, CA). Ron is PACE Equity’s national practice leader of Hospitality, overseeing hospitality strategy and assisting local market leaders and their sponsors. Ron has over 15 years of experience with commercial real estate brokerage, real estate development, EB-5 financing and C-PACE. He has held leadership positions with Cushman & Wakefield, Greenheart Development Company, and TriHaven Investment Group. During his career he has worked on projects and transactions exceeding $750M. PACE Equity is a balance sheet lender and one of the nation’s leaders in C-PACE financing. The company has provided C-PACE funding for over a decade with a 100% delivery record on its funding commitments. PACE Equity recently introduced CIRRUS Low Carbon financing and the affiliation with Aquarian Holdings. www.pace-equity.com.
Peter Grabell, Managing Director, PACE Loan Group (PLG) (Minneapolis MN). Having joined PLG in 2024 as Managing Director, Head of Production, Peter has over 25 years of experience in CPACE and CMBS loan transactions. Prior to joining PLG, he oversaw administration of the California Enterprise Development Authority’s PACE program for seven years and spearheaded over $5 billion in CRE structured financing for PACE Equity, Dividend Finance, and Bridger Commercial Funding. PLG is a portfolio company of AB CarVal, a subsidiary of Alliance Bernstein. PLG has institutional capital that supports its balance sheet and direct lending capabilities. www.goPLG.com
Robert Loeb, AVP, Originations-CPACE, Peachtree Group (Atlanta, GA). Robert joined Peachtree Group in 2021 and focuses on debt investments for acquisitions, recapitalizations, refinancings, and renovations across all real estate asset classes. Robert has held several different positions ranging from credit analyst to originating new debt investments across the credit platform. He has underwritten several hundred million of commercial real estate loans since joining the group and has originated new opportunities to help grow the credit business. Peachtree Group is a vertically integrated investment management firm founded in 2007. It specializes in identifying and capitalizing on opportunities across inefficient markets across the United States. Peachtree Group has closed over 741 transactions totaling $11.7B in value. As of 2025, Peachtree Group has $4.1B under management. The CPACE group at Peachtree was founded in 2019 and to date has closed over 100 transactions for over $1B. www.peachtreegroup.com.
Aidan McLaughlin, Director, West Coast Originations, Nuveen Green Capital (Portland, OR). As a director on the West Coast team for Nuveen Green Capital, Aidan oversees originating, underwriting, structuring, and closing of C-PACE loans west of the Rocky Mountains, with a focus on the Northwest. Aidan began his career in the C-PACE industry and has been originating and underwriting C-PACE loans for seven years, with loans closed in 15 states across ~80 projects, totaling nearly $900MM in volume. Nuveen Green Capital is a national leader in the C-PACE industry, with over $3B in C-PACE loans originated to date. In the past 12 months, Nuveen Green Capital has closed ~$1.2B in C-PACE loans across all asset types, with an emphasis on hospitality. https://www.nuveen.com/greencapital.
6:45-7:30 pm – Post-Presentation Networking and Cocktail Reception
Cocktails and appetizers
Pick up your discussions and connections from earlier in the evening. Meet those still on your list. Make plans for follow-up meetings or visits to northwest sites, hotels, or markets.
7:30 pm – Adjournment
REGISTRATION AND NHIF MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION:
Registration is open only to Members of NHIF and to NHIF’s invited guests. Early registration (through Friday, March 7, 2025) is $250; later registration is $275. Early registration is recommended. To register, please go to the link shown in the email notifications you’ve received about the meeting.
RESERVATIONS AT THE HOST HOTEL:
The Hilton Garden Inn Seattle/Bellevue will again be providing a limited block at the favorable rate of $179 for NHIF attendees. The room block will end on end on Thursday, March 13, or when the group block is sold out, whichever comes first. To make a reservation under the room block, please follow the instructions in the email notifications you have received about the meeting.
NHIF STEERING MEMBERS:
Irvin W. Sandman, Sandman Savrann PLLC ~ Mark Lukens, LWHA
NHIF PATRON SPONSORS:
NHIF BRAND SPONSORS:
NHIF PORTFOLIO SPONSORS:
NHIF SILVER SPONSORS:
