HERSHEY, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Officials of Shaner Hotels, an award winning, international hotel owner, operator and developer, today announced the opening of the 120-room Courtyard by Marriott Hershey Chocolate Avenue in Pa. The hotel is owned by Bears Creek Hershey Hotel, LLC, a joint development between Shaner and Chafia Capital Partners, a real estate investment and private equity firm. The property will be managed by Shaner Hotel Holdings, LP, and was financed by Clearfield, Pa.-based CNB Bank.
“We have been quite active in hotel development the past several years, and the fruits of our labor are coming on line,” said Plato Ghinos, Shaner president. “We expect to open an additional four hotels in 2017 and another five projected to open in 2018. We are quite upbeat on our outlook for hotel real estate and continue to have an aggressive appetite to build respected brands in markets with high demand generators and barriers to new entry.”
Located at 515 E. Chocolate Avenue in historic Hershey, Pa., the four-story hotel is nestled between downtown Hershey, the Hershey Country Club, Hershey Chocolate World, Hersheypark and the Hershey Medical Center. Additional nearby attractions include Indian Echo Caverns, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course and ZooAmerica North American Wildlife Park.
“While we always design our hotels to be a part of the local community, we took special steps for this property to architecturally enhance it to match Hershey’s historic downtown, providing such local touches as brick and limestone,” Ghinos added.
Hotel amenities include guest laundry, fitness room, indoor pool and full-service business center. The hotel features the new Courtyard Refreshing Business lobby, which includes the C-Bar, serving breakfast, coffee and cocktails, as well as flexible seating options ranging from a communal table in the middle of the action to more private media booths with high-definition televisions to a more intimate, semi-enclosed lounge area. Guest rooms offer free Wi-Fi, plush bedding and a guest room entertainment package which includes 40 HD channels, an interactive channel guide and internet TV equipped with Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Crackle and Pandora.
“This property is configured to comfortably accommodate both business and leisure travelers that are coming to Hershey in larger numbers every year,” said Lance Shaner, Shaner Hotels chairman. “That’s what made this location so appealing, its close proximity to all the key locations in the city. With our headquarters just across the way in State College, we are particularly gratified to open this one-of-a-kind hotel in our backyard. As the newest hotel in Hershey, we expect the property to ramp up quickly as it takes its rightful place as the destination of choice for business and leisure travelers to the Sweetest Place on Earth.”
About Chafia Capital Partners
Founded in 2003, Chafia Capital Partners is a real estate investment and private equity firm. Chafia Capital Partners, through its related entities, has invested in numerous commercial real estate assets across a variety of property segments and has experience in developing and repositioning commercial properties. Chafia Capital Partners also participates in private equity and venture capital transactions as a capital provider and advisor to both startup and existing operating businesses. For more information, visit www.chafiallc.com.
About Shaner Hotels
Headquartered in State College, Pa., Shaner Hotels is one of the foremost owner-operator companies in the hospitality industry with more than $1 billion invested in 50 hotel properties owned and managed across the U.S., Italy and the Bahamas. Over the past 40 years, the company has also been engaged in both new development and redevelopment of more than 80 hotel projects with leading brand affiliations such as Marriott International, InterContinental Hotels, Choice Hotels and Hilton. New properties are constantly evaluated as Shaner Hotels continues a conservative yet opportunistic approach to growth. For more information about the company and its divisions visit www.shanercorp.com.
