TAMPA, FL—Spirides Hospitality Finance Company has successfully arranged, and its client has closed on a $5 million construction and permanent loan from a southeast U.S. headquartered bank to finance the development of a new Holiday Inn Express in Latta, South Carolina.

This soon to be built Holiday Inn Express will feature 68 guest rooms and suites in one 4-story building situated on 4 acres of land. It will be located at 1325 Cattle Farm Road at SC Highway 38 just off of Interstate 95 Exit 181 near the City of Latta in Dillon County, SC which is part of the Florence metropolitan area. Exit 181 is one of the primary exits off of Interstate 95 that leads to the very popular Myrtle Beach, SC resort area.
The site of this new Holiday Inn Express development is located just a few minutes drive from the recently opened South Carolina Ports Authority’s Inland Port Dillon, a $50.5 million intermodal cargo transfer hub located 130 miles from the Port of Charleston, SC. Inland ports are where trains and trucks exchange tens of thousands of overseas shipping containers packed with consumer goods. Also located nearby are Darlington Raceway & Museum, McLeod Regional Hospital, Florence Civic Center, regional offices of Mohawk Industries and Johnson Controls, and two South Carolina National Guard stations.
“Inland port intermodal complexes are a new type of demand generator that we are now seeing as the shipping container traffic at our nations’ shipping seaports continues to grow. Inland Port Dillon is expected to convert an estimated 45,000 shipping container movements from truck to rail and vice versa within its first year of operation, and it has already created 1,000 new jobs,” says Harry G. Spirides, President of Spirides Hospitality Finance Company who led the debt placement team representing the borrower in this transaction. “Inland Port Dillon is a state-of-the-art intermodal shipping facility which will turbo charge the economy in Dillon County. This inland port was brilliantly developed in a part of South Carolina which historically has had high unemployment and poverty rates, but that is now quickly changing thanks to the opening of this inland port,” continues Spirides.
The terms of the financing arranged by Spirides for this new Holiday Inn Express development project include a 78% loan to cost ratio, an interest rate of U.S. Prime Rate + 1.75%, a 12 month interest only period through the construction phase, and a 25 year term with a 25 year amortization. There is no prepayment penalty after the first three years of the loan.
Holiday Inn Express® hotels is IHG’s (InterContinental Hotel Group’s) fastest growing franchised brand. It has operated for over 25 years in the midscale limited service segment of the lodging industry. With more than 2,570 hotels open in 33 countries the Holiday Inn Express brand has the flexibility to perform well in any location, from an interstate to an airport to an urban center.
Based in Tampa, Florida, Spirides Hospitality Finance Company arranges mortgages and loans for hotel owners across the United States for new ground-up construction, acquisition, debt refinancing, renovation, and other types of hotel capital projects. Its sister company Spirides Hospitality Realty Company is a real estate brokerage company which assists investors with the buying and selling of hotels. Spirides charges no up-front fees and provides their clients with the best terms available in the marketplace along with exceptional service and fast execution.
Members of the Spirides family have owned, operated, developed, and advised hotels and restaurants for over 90 years since the 1920s. In fact, in 1969 this company’s founder and president Harry G. Spirides’ late father George H. Spirides assisted his good friend Cecil B. Day to design, build, and open the world’s first Day’s Inn near Savannah, GA, and he subsequently became the first manager of the world’s first Day’s Inn early in his career as a distinguished owner and operator of hotels.
Harry G. Spirides is a former owner and operator of a 205 room, full service, beach resort hotel for over 20 years. He is a third-generation hotelier who has over 30 years of experience working in full service hotels. He rose up through the ranks of his family’s hotel company working in every position from restaurant dishwasher to general manager to chief executive officer. Today, Harry Spirides, through his companies Spirides Hospitality Finance Company and Spirides Hospitality Realty Company, finds it very rewarding to assist hotel owners with their financing and real estate brokerage needs, having “walked a thousand miles in their shoes.”