Dec. 31—ROCHESTER — A firm led by a man who grew up in Rochester recently paid $7.8 million for the Marriott SpringHill Suites hotel across Second Street from Mayo Clinic’s Saint Marys Campus.
Minneapolis-based Second Street Hotel Group LLC, which is led by Harshal Patel, purchased the 25-year-old SpringHill Suites hotel at 1125 Second St. SW. on Dec. 23. The hotel group made a down payment of $1.42 million to the seller, Carpenter and Torgerson SSMR LLC of Willmar, Minnesota.
Olmsted County estimated the total estimated value of the SpringHill Suites and land at $6.71 million for 2024-2025.
Patel is a co-founder of Empire Hotels with Minesh Patel and Jayesh Patel. Empire owns the Fairfield Inn & Suites, Hampton Inn South and the Best Western in Rochester along with 10 other Minnesota hotels and five in the state of New York. The 34-year-old Harshal Patel grew up in Rochester and lived in his family’s Courtesy Inn motel, near the Miracle Mile Shopping Center. He later became manager of the small motel, which was demolished to clear the way for the Fairfield Inn.
Harshal Patel, under the corporate name of HP PB LLC, also owns the 1.82-acre parcel of open land at 18 First Avenue SE, where the Post Bulletin complex previously stood in downtown Rochester.
HP PB purchased that property in 2023 for $12.5 million. After the newspaper moved its offices to the second floor of the Think Bank building at 1698 Greenview Drive SW, the 100,000-square-foot complex was demolished in 2020. Patel has not yet announced any development plans for the downtown land.
The SpringHill Suites purchase is the third major Second Street hotel sale in December. Terratron, a Utah-based firm with a big presence in Minnesota, paid $29.5 million for the Homewood Suites and Courtyard By Marriott hotels and related parking areas at 165/161 13th Ave. SW on Dec. 18.
Carpenter and Torgenson II, LLC, sold the pair of hotels, which were operated by TPI Hospitality of Willmar. TPI also operated SpringHill Suites, which means the Willmar company no longer manages any hotel properties in Rochester.
Rochester’s Carpenter family and Torgerson Properties built all three hotels. SpringHill Suites, originally under the Fairfield Suites flag, was the first major national hotel brand to open in that area in 1999. The other two hotels were built in 2005 and 2013.