An Investor nnn Insight

We have invested with Stonebridge both through our LLC and individually. It has been an exciting and gratifying experience. We have lived through the good times and a pandemic and cannot say enough about how Navin and his team have operated during both periods. Navin and his associates always live up to what they present to us. The good times have been somewhat easy and their performance during the pandemic has been outstanding. Our experience has been more than acceptable. Navin and his team have always been informative as to the operations and have done an admirable job in protecting the investments.

Dick and Eddie Robinson

in 1994, and i needed to learn their front desk check-in system, so i took her along. That’s just the way it was. Navin would build the hotel and i would go in a week or two before it was ready to open to make sure the rooms looked perfect and the staff was ready. Then i would leave,” she says. “i remember the day when i turned thirty, we were opening up our newest hotel [a Hampton inn in Louisville, CO] and we spent the day prepping rooms so we could open. The whole idea is to open as quickly as you can, so you can rent those rooms.”

Ashley Dimond says her mother’s birthday that year was one of her first memories of the Stonebridge office. “My dad brought a cake and the three of us and my dad’s assistant, Linda, celebrated with Gary and Beth. That’s definitely my first office memory. i played with Linda’s cat all the time. From the time i was four or five, if i wasn’t at school, i was at the office—that was our family.”

After opening two more hotels in Fruita and Aurora, Colorado, Stonebridge achieved another milestone in 1995—the company was approved for ownership of its first Marriott-franchise hotel—the Fairfield i nn Highlands Ranch. The “accidental hotelier” was now poised to proactively grow the company in a way that was previously unimagined.

With ten hotels operating under the Stonebridge banner, Navin turned to Joan Kirk, a seasoned professional with broad experience in the hospitality industry, for assistance with navigating the company’s next steps. Kirk joined his corporate team in 1996 as senior vice president of hotel operations. Now there were six staff members employed at Stonebridge, including technical personnel and a director of human resources. A rapid transformation had taken place—Stonebridge was no longer simply a promising development and property-management company; it was becoming a larger full-service hotel company, forging its own unique culture and mission.

The Alaskan Frontier

A new business adventure was undertaken in 1997, when the company made a bold move to develop hotels in the far-away market of Alaska, building a brand-new Hampton inn in Anchorage. Less than a year before that, the company had opened six properties closer to home in Colorado. But Navin underscored the importance of Stonebridge’s

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Stonebridge broke ground on an exciting new hospitality concept in 2007—a large, multi-use development, dubbed CitySet, that combined two hotels, one a Marriott, the other a Hilton, and—nestled in between the two hotels—a number of restaurants and retail uses, all on the same block.

To start the project, the Stonebridge team acquired an aging hotel, along with the large parcel of land surrounding it, in Denver’s chic Cherry Creek neighborhood, transforming it into the Hilton Garden inn Cherry Creek, which opened its doors in 2009. Eric Hautzenrader, the general manager of the hotel, remarks, “Mr. Dimond is extremely strategic about what flag is flying on each hotel in Stonebridge’s portfolio. He does a very good job of deciding what’s needed in the market, working closely with hotel brands to find what’s going to work, given the market conditions.” in fact, this Hilton Garden inn won Hilton’s Best Conversion Award in 2010.

The company later broke ground on a brand-new hotel next door, the Marriott Residence inn Denver Cherry Creek, which opened in 2013, then it constructed the “gastronomic urban village” dining and retail spaces. Hautzenrader explains: “CitySet is a neat feature for us. its restaurants complement what we do here at the Hilton Garden inn, rather than being competition. We have that automatic relationship built in with these restaurants and the community. it’s been a fantastic advantage for us in what we’re able to offer our guests.” CitySet won the international Council of Shopping Centers’ US Design & Development: New Development Award in 2014.

When you go to the Colorado mountain town named by Rand McNally and USA Today as the Most Fun Town in America, Stonebridge decided to build a hotel to match it. The All Suite Residence Inn Glenwood Springs offers amazing views on the outside and fully equipped kitchen apartments (newly renovated) on the inside, along with meeting spaces. Nearby are the famous hot springs, caverns, and Sunlight Mountain Resort.

Continued from page 8 success at the new Alaska property, saying, “We proved that geography was not a limit,” contrary to an article that had appeared about him in the Rocky Mountain News.

Years later, when Navin and Rita visited one of their Alaska properties, their young daughter Sonja, who was born in 1997, was along for the trip. “i was really young, but i do remember a moose walking through the automatic doors into the lobby. it was insane! My parents always wanted to expose me and my sister to unique places, to see how other people live, and to experience other cultures.”

Next, the company tackled its first new-build true full-service hotel, building the Radisson San Francisco Airport Hotel on a complicated piece of real estate in Brisbane, California, in 2000. As the decade progressed, geography no longer posed limitations and Stonebridge entered markets on both sides of the Continental Divide—Arizona, California, Utah, virginia, and New York City. Stonebridge’s corporate staff increased to forty-five people, outgrowing its offices, and necessitating the move to new and larger company headquarters in the Denver Tech Center area, a far cry from the humble office in Aurora they’d occupied less than a decade ago.

Along with additions to the company’s portfolio, staff, and office space, there were subtractions, too. in 2000, Gary Rohr moved out of Stonebridge management to oversee iSherpa Capital, an early-stage technology investment company that Navin, together with Gary and another partner, founded around that time. in 2005, Gary and Beth sold their interests in Stonebridge to Navin and Rita, who further refined the company’s brand by focusing on more-profitable selectand full-service hotel investments. in 2005, Kevin Mahoney joined the

FirstBank has enjoyed a strong relationship with Stonebridge over the last thirteen years, both from a lending and business banking standpoint. Over that time, Navin’s integrity, perseverance, and ability to deliver results has shown through on countless occasions. He continues to demonstrate why he is one of the nation’s best hoteliers. During what has been arguably the most difficult time in the history of hospitality, Navin and his team were communicative, moved quickly, and stepped up when necessary to weather the storm. With all the challenges that COVID-19 brought, there is not a hotel operator around that we would rather be partners with.

David Fisher, President First Bank, Treasury Management / Marketing

company as its first chief operating officer, allowing Navin to concentrate on what he clearly enjoyed most—development of new projects. Kevin took a hands-on approach to the management of each hotel in the portfolio, creating standard operating procedures to outline best practices at each property, saying, “We’re very proactive in terms of day-to-day issues at our hotels. Navin leads the charge and grows the company, but the hotel business isn’t only what we do in development, you have to be engaged 24/7 at the operating level.”

Randy Santulli came on board as senior vice president of operations in 2006, further solidifying the base of expertise in Stonebridge’s core executive team. in 2008, the company opened six new hotels, proving that the core mission of the company—to create hotels that inspire—was a sustainable business model. Tommy Nigro, acquisitions and development manager at the time, theorizes about Navin’s ability to uncover investment deals that had superb potential, “He’s so prepared. He’s a ravenous reader of news and industry magazines— he just always knows what’s going on. Through the channels of his network, he knows of opportunities that aren’t widely publicized.”

At the close of 2009, Navin laid the groundwork for an exciting project that would take the Stonebridge portfolio to a new level— adapting the vacant Colorado National Bank building, a former Denver architectural icon that was standing empty just blocks from the city’s popular 16th Street Mall, into a luxury hotel. He partnered with Marriott international and the City of Denver to carefully convert the building—bank vaults and original artwork included—into the Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center Hotel. After it opened, Sonja Dimond completed an internship rotation at the hotel during her freshman year at Cornell University. “One of my distinct memories, now that i’m honed in on the design aspects of properties, was how my dad was really innovative in transforming that historic property into a hotel, helping to revitalize the community and restore the glory of that building.”

But Navin’s vision for the company didn’t stop there. He and his executive team set their sights on major projects in Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Boston, amongst other locations.

Building Trusting Relationships

When asked what characteristic defines Stonebridge’s core values, Navin is quick to say that building a reputation as a trustworthy partner is the single most important step to achieving success as a hotelier. “We never gave people an opportunity not to trust us. We always delivered—or over-delivered—on what we said we would.”

Santulli recalls researching Stonebridge Companies before he was hired there. “i was impressed with Navin and Stonebridge because of what the company had achieved in their first years in business, the type of portfolio they built in terms of branding and asset quality. i realized the reputation of the company was very much a growth story, with a solid past and a growth-focused future. The company was well thought of by the major brands, especially Marriott and Hilton.”

Throughout these busy years, the Dimonds never lost sight of what was most important to them personally—time with family. There was often overlap between Navin and Rita’s business and parenting responsibilities and they were fortunate enough to occasionally combine work and pleasure on trips with their daughters. “We would go to other countries or locations and we’d check out hotels or restaurants,” says Sonja. She explains that the over-arching concept during each trip was an awareness of the hotel experience from both the guests’ and employees’ perspectives. “Ever since we were young, my parents ingrained in us a sense of hospitality—to treat others the way you want to be treated.”

Sonja testifies to her father’s impressive insight into the business of building hotels. “i liked to look at hotel rooms with my dad, learning his eye for detail. i realize now that i’m becoming like him in that sense. i traveled with him on a variety of business trips, but i remember one in particular when i was around twelve, we went to Marriott’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. He was on their advisory board for the Residence inn brand. He took me along and we toured these showrooms, mock hotel rooms with new features and designs, exactly the way a room was in a real hotel. i thought it was the coolest thing. There was a moment where i realized how much influence my dad had on the industry—i’d never really known that. You always look up to your parents, but i hadn’t realized what hard work it was, doing what he did.”

Providing a nurturing home for their daughters and fostering their empathy for others was always a top priority, even as Navin and Rita worked to foster a rewarding environment for the entire Stonebridge team in Denver and in its hotels around the country.

The Colorado National Bank was constructed in 1916 and withstood over ninety years of national and local booms and busts before finally closing its doors in 2007. But it found new life when Stonebridge Companies purchased it and transformed it into The Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center, opening in 2014. The magnificent, historical murals remained with the property for all to enjoy.

A short drive from Denver is Boulder, where Stonebridge has its Residence Inn by Marriott Boulder Canyon. With the famous Pearl Street Mall downtown for shopping, along with hundreds of restaurants, breweries, and gift shops, or the miles and miles of hiking and biking trails, guests don’t run out of things to do here.