Sale of venerable Biltmore nears

EXTENDED STAY: Richard L. Brush, a Johnson & Wales dean, at the Providence Biltmore Hotel. Like his father before him, Brush served as general manager of the hotel. The Biltmore is now in receivership. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
EXTENDED STAY: Richard L. Brush, a Johnson & Wales dean, at the Providence Biltmore Hotel. Like his father before him, Brush served as general manager of the hotel. The Biltmore is now in receivership. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

Richard L. Brush, dean of the hospitality college at Johnson & Wales University, knows a lot about the Providence Biltmore Hotel.
Beginning when he was a toddler in the late 1940s, he’s spent lots of time there.
His father, Robert Brush, was general manager when the Biltmore was one of only a handful of hotels in the country owned by the fledgling Sheraton Corp., which had just been established in 1937. The Biltmore was then “considered one of the great hotels in the nation,” Brush recalled.
Earlier this year owners of the 89-year-old city landmark, weighed down by $30 million in debts, entered receivership. The property is now close to being sold for $18 million to a Massachusetts-based hotel-management company, Linchris Hotel Corp. of Hanover.
Linchris has created a new entity, Providence Hospitality LLC based in Delaware, to acquire the Biltmore, according to Glenn Gistis, Linchris chief financial officer. A hearing to decide the sale is scheduled for Dec. 9 in Superior Court in Providence.
Linchris provides management services to approximately 25 hotels on the East Coast, most in New England but none in Rhode Island, working with such brand names as Best Western, Hilton, Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn and Comfort Inn. Among the hotels closest to Rhode Island that Linchris manages are the Doubletree in Milford, Mass., the Holiday Inn in Mansfield, Mass., and the Best Western in Boston. Linchris officers are partners in 75 percent of the hotels the company manages, according to its website (www.linchris.com).
Linchris representatives did not immediately return several phone calls last week to discuss their plans for the Biltmore; Glenn Gistis said he could not discuss the company’s plans.
The Biltmore entered state receivership early in 2011, but has remained open for business.
Providence attorney Richard L. Gemma was appointed master of Historic Hotel Partners of Rhode Island LP, owner of the Biltmore and its affiliated catering company, Cornerstone Catering LLC, shortly after HHP entered receivership. The local hotel company has an aggregate debt of about $30 million, Gemma told Providence Business News, both secured and unsecured. If Providence Hospitality turns out to be successful in its bid, Gemma said, the new owners would retain the historic edifice as a hotel. “That will always be the case,” Gemma said. He added that he expects Linchris to invest “a substantial amount of money” in what he called “a Rhode Island icon.”
According to Superior Court documents, Gemma in June engaged the international Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels brokerage firm to sell the Biltmore. The Jones Lang group, based in London, emailed information about the Biltmore to 2,500 potential buyers in July and conducted tours for about a half dozen interested parties.
Eleven formal offers resulted from potential buyers across the country. The Linchris/Providence Hospitality bid was deemed the best.
Gemma chose and the court approved designation of the $18 million offer as the “stalking horse” bid, the best offer that other bidders must now surpass. Providence Hospitality has placed a $1.5 million deposit on the hotel and signed an asset-sales agreement, according to court documents.
At the Dec. 9 hearing, however, other bids may be considered. The deadline for submitting bids is 5 p.m. Dec. 6, with a $1.5 million deposit due the next day. If other bids are submitted, Gemma said, “we’ll have a little auction,” referring to court procedure that would see Judge Michael Silverstein preside over an auction among the bidders.
If no other bids come in, Gemma said he will recommend to the court that Providence Hospitality’s offer be accepted.
Regardless of who the buyer turns out to be, the final sales agreement will include provisions that require the new Biltmore owner to honor existing contractual obligations, Gemma said, including two labor contracts, separate leases with Starbucks and McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, 32 weddings for which $317,200 is on deposit and 47 catered events with $130,000 on deposit. The 292-room hotel has 195 employees.
With a selling price of $18 million but debts of $30 million, $12 million will still be owed to Biltmore creditors. Gemma said the new owner will not be responsible for those debts, which he said will stay with the estate and probably will prove to be “uncollected.” The Biltmore opened June 6, 1922, with a party attended by 1,000 people and lights illuminating the building from top to bottom. New York architects Warren and Wetmore, whose other commissions included Grand Central Station in New York City, designed the structure in a V-shape so every guest room is an outside room.
In the Big Band era of the 1930s and 1940s, famous orchestra leaders such as Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey performed in the Garden Room on the second floor, a performance space with a dance floor. Brush can remember, when he was about 11 years old, attending the filming of a children’s television show in the Garden Room. “It was in the morning, a live show, and I can remember sitting in the audience with my dad,” he said.
The Biltmore for many years has been the center of social and political life in downtown Providence and it remains in demand today for weddings, political rallies and other events. Brush recalled the public complaints that arose in the 1970s when the lobby staircase was removed, replaced by the exterior glass elevator. He is glad to see that subsequent owners brought back the staircase; it was, he said, a favorite meeting place downtown.
Brush followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming general manager of what was then the Omni-Biltmore from 1981 to 1985, owned by the Omni-Dunfey Hotel Group.
The Biltmore and the Providence Marriott Downtown on Orms Street were the major hotels in the capital city in the 1980s and often shared business, he remembered.
“We were a very successful hotel,” Brush added, recalling that the Biltmore did a lot of corporate business because of its location downtown and proximity to the civic center, long before the convention center was built.
Brush’s advice to the new owners would be to get to know the local community.
“I think that is very important,” he said. “Rhode Islanders feel very strongly about the past and their traditions and it [Rhode Island] really is a different kind of place. Learn about the history of the hotel because that means a lot to your customers.” •

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