One year after opening, the Renaissance ClubSport Hotel and Fitness Resort in Aliso Viejo is getting a management makeover.
Pleasanton-based fitness club operator Leisure Sports Inc., one of the owners of the Renaissance ClubSport, took over management of the hotel in August.
It replaced Marriott International Inc. as manager at the Aliso Viejo development, which cost an estimated $65 million to build.
The management change was a “collective decision” of the property’s owners, according to Patrick O’Brien, Leisure Sports’ chief financial officer.
“Marriott was doing a good job, (but) we just felt that Leisure Sports could provide a little more attention” to the hotel, said Robert Olson, chief executive of Irvine-based R.D. Olson Development, which headed up construction of the project.
Olson and Leisure Sports are co-owners of ClubSport, along with two other investors.
ClubSport, Aliso Viejo’s only full-service hotel, combines a 174-room hotel and a 75,000-square-foot fitness center, along with meeting rooms and a restaurant. It opened in July 2008.
The change comes amid a local hotel market that’s been among the hardest hit in the recession.
Through June, occupancy rates for Orange County’s hotels ran about 66% in the Anaheim area, down from 73% a year ago, according to Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research Inc.
In the area around Newport Beach and Dana Point, occupancy rates were 57% at the end of June, compared to 68% a year ago.
Leisure Sports officials didn’t disclose the annual occupancy rates for the Renaissance ClubSport. Officials said they’ve seen improvement in recent weeks; occupancy was in the 80% range from late July until mid August, they said.
With overall occupancy rates and revenue down, hotel owners across the country increasingly have been terminating management agreements, citing performance thresholds that have not been met, said Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, an Irvine-based consultancy.
The moves largely are an effort to cut costs. Hotel managers typically earn 3% to 5% of a property’s gross revenue, Reay said.
The decision to change management at ClubSport,which is part of Aliso Viejo-based developer Parker Properties’ 1.5 million-square-foot Summit Office Campus, just off the San Joaquin Hills Corridor (73) Toll Road,has much to do with the sports club side of the facility, according to O’Brien.
“The club component needed attention,” O’Brien said.
The club has about 1,800 members; the goal is to get closer 4,000 members, he said. Monthly dues run about $130 dollars. The gym is free for hotel guests.
