Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham is one of the fastest-growing hotel brands in the U.S. and Canada and will open its first property in Reno in summer 2025.
Sandpiper Hospitality of Richmond, Virginia, is developing the Echo Suites brand at 545 Double Eagle Court in South Meadows. The four-story, 450,000-square-foot building will be Sandpiper’s third hotel in Truckee Meadows, said Carter Rise Jr., vice president of development.
“Reno is a market we are very proud of,” Rise said. “We have over 30 hotels in our portfolio and many more that we manage for third parties. We are always looking for new opportunities, and (Reno) is an area we have aggressively targeted by looking for land suitable for another property.”
“Reno is a growing MSA with a lot of investment in technology and strong business development in the extended stay space. Anywhere there is development and new construction, that is a big demand driver for us,” he added.
Sandpiper also owns the Courtyard by Marriott at 6855 S. Virginia St. and opened an Extended Stay America Premier Suites at the corner of East Lincoln Way and Howard Drive in Sparks last November. Occupancy at the new Sparks property has been excellent, Rise said, which provides confidence in the development of additional Extended Stay properties throughout the region.
“It’s a proof of concept,” he said. “Plans for (the new hotel in South Reno) were in motion long before we actually opened the Extended Stay America, but seeing how well it’s gone has definitely boosted our confidence and, frankly, got us thinking about what’s next after this hotel in Double Eagle Court.”
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find developable land in the greater Reno-Sparks area. Rise said Sandpiper typically looks for at least two acres when developing a new hotel site, but was only able to secure a 1.5-acre site in South Meadows. Because of the smaller land acquisition, the company had to reduce the size of the hotel.
“We normally look for two hectares to build a 124-room hotel, but due to site constraints, we can only build 100 rooms, which is below the Echo Suites prototype. But it was just too good a piece of land to pass up.
“More rooms would have been great here and we worked hard with our architects and structural engineers to find a way to make this possible. However, we were limited by the size of the site,” Rise added.
Ron Cobb, a partner at CPNV in Reno, assisted Sandpiper in acquiring the Double Eagle Court property.
General contractor Metcalf Builders has already begun construction on the $10 million Echo Suites project. Rise said Sandpiper cast a wide net in its search for potential general contractors before settling on the long-established Northern Nevada company, which moved from Carson City to Truckee Meadows last year to better serve its clients in Reno and Sparks.
“We interviewed several companies and four of them submitted bids,” Rise said. “This is our first time working with Metcalf, but many people we’ve worked with on previous projects have highly recommended them.”
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts launched the Echo Suites flag in 2022, and it has quickly become the hotel franchise’s fastest-growing brand, Wyndham said in a press release last July. The first Echo Suites property will open in Spartansburg, SC, in 2023. Rise told NNBW that Sandpiper has two more Echo Suites projects in development in Virginia and would potentially add another property in Northern Nevada if it could find the right property.
“Reno is a tough place to find land,” he said. “We want to be opportunistic and believe there is room for additional long-term accommodation in Reno.”
“Sandpiper has worked closely with Wyndham and other hotel developers to bring Echo to life,” he added. “We are excited that the Reno hotel is one of the first dozen or so properties; it will be a great addition to the extended-stay space.”
The Echo Suites brand is not an upscale luxury brand, but rather a lower-middle-class one, Rise said. Customers typically include business travelers and people in the “gray area” such as traveling construction crews, nurses, people in town for corporate training or people working on long-term contracts, Rise said.
“The brand is growing and long-term travelers will be very familiar with it in a few years,” he said.
Krishna Paliwal, head of architecture, design and construction for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said in a statement that guests across the country are looking for affordable and comfortable extended stays and Echo Suites meets that need.
“Expanding the presence of this brand is in line with our mission to make hotel travel possible for all and we look forward to adding this hotel to our portfolio in the coming years,” said Paliwal.
