Sonnenblick Development – Contractor selected to build Sacramento International Airport hotel

Sundt Construction will be the general contractor of the long-delayed Hyatt Place hotel at Sacramento International Airport.

The 150-room hotel is a design-build project, so the general contractor is an integral partner in the planning. A permitting meeting is set for Monday with Sacramento County and the development team, said Bob Sonnenblick, principal of Sonnenblick Development LLC of Los Angeles, the developer of the hotel.

The hotel won approvals from Sacramento County in January last year, but Sonnenblickand his previous general contractor had a falling out, which delayed the project. Sonnenblick declined to name the previous general contractor.

Sundt is based in Tempe, Ariz., and it has nine offices in Arizona, California and Texas, including an office in South Natomas, just a few miles from the airport.

In the interim between its initial approval and now, Sonnenblick had a feasibility study done that found the hotel would do better with larger suites and more of them, so he added 15 rooms, including some as large as 650 square feet. Regular suites are about 450 square feet.

“We don’t want to be just a limited-service hotel. We want to get some higher-end clientele as well,” he said.

Construction will be a prevailing wage project and Sonnenblick has a handshake agreement to allow UNITE HERE Local 49, the hotel employees union, to represent the eventual hotel workers at the Hyatt Place, which could open in the summer of 2018. A groundbreaking is expected this summer, he said.

The airport would bring significant business to the hotel. Many flights out of Sacramento leave very early in the morning, so travelers from all over Northern California could use the hotel to arrive the night before traveling. Also, the hotel, like the airport, is right off Interstate 5, which can generate demand from auto travelers.

Another potential business for the hotel is air crew rooms. Many airlines have contracts that require them to house flight crews in nearby hotels.