Local developer adding Studio 6 extended-stay hotel in Houston
A rendering of a Studio 6 extended-stay hotel that will be built off the Houston exit of Interstate 79.
Tejas Gosai
Tejas Gosai is no Conrad Hilton. Yet.
Gosai plans to soon break ground for a Studio 6 motel off the Houston/Route 519 exit of Interstate 79. It will be the fourth hotel he owns, all in Washington County and all catering largely to Marcellus Shale drillers.
“This will be the first Studio 6 in Pennsylvania,” said Gosai, a Charleroi native in his early 30s who recently started a consulting company, Northeast Hotel Management.
Studio 6 is a chain of extended-stay motels. Blackstone Group LP, a private equity firm that also owns Hilton Hotels and Resorts, purchased the Studio 6 and Motel 6 chains from ACCOR in October for $1.9 billion.
Collectively, there are 1,102 Studio 6 and Motel 6 units in the United States and Canada. Blackstone, however, announced in October that it plans to expand those chains globally.
The Houston Studio 6 will be just off the Houston exit of Interstate 79. It will be on a 1.8-acre site behind a BP gas station and near Nello Construction’s headquarters building and a second office complex. Gosai and his father, Kam, a Mon Valley physician, are the partners and they hope to open before the end of 2013.
Gosai’s latest endeavor will feature 86 efficiency-like rooms with a kitchenette, desk, small-screen TV and sitting area
“It’s like what you would get at a Hilton, but a little smaller,” Gosai said. “No pool. Breakfast is very limited.
“(Blackstone) is going to really change convenience motels for the next 10 years. It’s easy to have good showers, good furniture and nice spacing in a room for $99.99 (per night).”
Size and amenities-wise, this Studio 6 is similar to the Microtel motel that Gosai is having built nearby, off Racetrack Road in Chartiers Township. The Microtel likewise will be close to a BP station off an I-79 exit. Gosai and his partners there – his father, Perry Monpara and Sujay Patel – expects it to open by the end of 2013.
That will double his hotel interests. Gosai is the owner/manager of two adjacent hotels in Bentleyville, the Best Western Garden Inn and Holiday Inn Express. In 2009, after taking over operation of those facilities at his father’s request, Gosai started to realize there was a huge demand for rooms from drillers. Huge gradually morphed into humongous.
“We’ve been sold out there every day,” he said of the Bentleyville sites. “We have to turn away business. It’s tough to say ‘no.’ Now we will have these other two motels.”
And to get off on the right foot with drillers at Studio 6 . . . Gosai will have a boot washer installed near the left entrance, which will lead to two locker rooms outfitted with lockers and boot dryers. Drill workers will have key code or key access to the lockers.
Gosai is hoping to strike oil with both ventures.