What the session put on stage
BITAC Independent 2026 ran 23-25 August at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix. One session paired Sondra Storm, principal, chief executive and co-founder of Embarcadero Hospitality Group, with Paul Breslin, managing director of Horwath HTL. The session title was "The Independent Advantage: Creative Capital, Partnerships and New Ways to Make Hotels Pencil." Hotel Interactive published the report on 17 September 2026.
The gap a group seller meets at the desk
Storm put current conditions first. Capital is expensive, construction costs are high and equity requirements have grown. Labour, technology, cost of goods and distribution keep pressing on operations. She said independents feel part of that harder.
"We don't have the scale. Most often we don't have the scale. We don't have the infrastructure. We don't have that streamline of central reservations coming through, and we don't have that prescribed playbook that comes with a major brand," she said.
That is the group-sales picture at an independent property. A group enquiry arrives at a single sales desk with no central reservations feed behind it and no brand sales network in front of it.
The partnerships that stand in for the network
Storm said revenue at a 22-room Wine Country property more than doubled across the first several years after acquisition. The property treats nearby wineries and their experiences as extensions of the hotel.
"The amenities are these relationships that we have with wineries and these one-of-a-kind experiences that we're able to drive," she said.
A wine event moved from July to February produced a sold-out winter weekend. A local supper club holds events at the hotel and packages them into a weekend, which sold dates that had been soft. At a property in Bend, Oregon, the hotel works with the outdoor brand Ruffwear on pet amenities and with a local artist who paints guests' dogs and mails the portraits as postcards.
One property sits next to a city-owned meeting venue. Under a public-private arrangement the hotel manages that venue rather than financing meeting space of its own. That is the group-space answer where the capital for a ballroom is not there.
Where a fitness centre does not fit, the company has partnered with local gyms.
The capital tools that open the door
Breslin walked through Okan Tower, a 72-story mixed-use development in Miami valued on stage at $500 million, with roughly $10 million of EB-5 financing and C-PACE financing in the structure. Those two figures are his, stated from the stage.
Storm gave the portfolio examples. One rural development qualified for a USDA loan. A pipeline project carries both C-PACE and USDA financing alongside a $10 million city contribution delivered as a rebate of transient occupancy taxes over time.
"That was essential to making the capital stack, making the pro forma work, and an essential component of the capital stack," she said.
Breslin kept four fundamentals in the conversation: location, timing, the right team and a realistic read of the economics. He put partners who bring more than capital above the rest. "I believe equity has to add value, not just money, but they have to contribute to the success," he said.
What a municipality will trade
Breslin told developers to learn a municipality's objectives before arriving with a list of requests. "Don't just go to them and say, 'What can you do for me?' Understand what are their objectives, and have a relationship with them," he said.
He cited a resort project in Douglasville, Georgia, where a share of hotel-tax revenue supported the project's marketing for 15 years in a community without an established destination management organisation. Tax abatements carry weight in the same conversation, he said, particularly where public incentives decide whether a project proceeds.
Storm said Embarcadero has hired third parties to run economic-impact studies on its own projects. Those reports quantify anticipated tax collections, property values, job creation and community spending. "The independent analysis from an impact study third party is critical because it gives the politicians and the community leaders cover that this is truly validated," Breslin said.
Revenue beyond the room
Breslin recalled the daily revenue report at Mr. C in Miami, an independent hotel of roughly 100 rooms, and counted approximately 25 revenue streams. "How is that possible in a hotel? It's because it's independent," he said. The streams run past rooms, restaurants and bars into branded retail products and event merchandise.
The portfolio count that differs
Storm said Embarcadero has opened four independent boutique hotels over the past seven years, with another two entitled and in the pipeline. The company's own site counts three boutique hotels launched and managed, in Oregon Wine Country and Boise, Idaho, with two more set to open. Both figures are published. The four-hotel count is the speaker's own.
The closing argument
Storm told the room to identify why a given hotel benefits from independence, then to use that freedom deliberately. "I think it always comes back to understanding why a project should be independent in the first place, and really leaning into that because there are really special things that we can do when we're not tied to what is required in terms of the brand," she said.
For a group buyer, the practical questions follow from the session: which amenity partnerships the property holds, which meeting venue it controls, and which third-party impact study it took to the city.