With several key hires and a focus on public-private partnerships, O'Reilly Hospitality Management LLC CEO Tim O'Reilly is building an industry presence in the vein of veteran hotelier John Q. Hammons.
O'Reilly, who also serves as partner with law firm O’Reilly, Jensen & Preston LLC, was the featured guest this morning for Springfield Business Journal's monthly 12 People You Need to know series held at Hilton Garden Inn, one of O'Reilly Hospitality's four hotels in Missouri and Oklahoma. The company also operates a resort and restaurant in Montana, as well as three Houlihan's eateries in Springfield and Columbia, according to its
website.
Though he only once met Hammons, the founder of Springfield-based competitor JQH Hotels & Resorts, O'Reilly has gained the benefit of his experience through O'Reilly Hospitality employees such as Scott Tarwater, Steve Minton and David Horst, former JQH employees who
made the switch to O'Reilly after Hammons stepped down from day-to-day management due to health reasons.
"We had great people before we brought on Scott and Steve and all the other gentlemen and ladies that we've hired recently, but the amount of added professionalism that they've brought to our company is substantial," O'Reilly said, noting former JQH employees have worked toward roughly $1 billion in hotel development during the past decade. "These folks were brought up in a system that worked and that had a very good employee culture that was built up during a long period of time. It's upped our game significantly."
Public-private partnerships - such as O'Reilly Hospitality's planned Embassy Suites hotel adjacent to a convention center in Denton, Texas - are popular projects nationwide, O'Reilly said, noting his company hopes to build on a concept Hammons was known for.
"Mr. Hammons was the king at really championing that," O'Reilly said. "His ability to develop this whole system where he'd go to a city or a university and partner with them - it sort of paved the way for what we are trying to do now."
With the Denton project, O'Reilly said his company is working with the city of Denton, which has agreed to build the convention center, and the University of North Texas, which has committed to a long-term lease agreement of land it owns for the development. He noted the hotel would be the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified Embassy Suites.
"We are in the ninth inning of that," he said of the project. "We have one issue with some tax implications based on Texas law that's getting in our way right now. We don't feel that will derail the project. We really have everything else set up."
Locally, O'Reilly Hospitality is partnering with Rita Baron of architecture firm Baron Design & Associates LLC and Terry Reynolds of C. Arch Bay Co. to build a five-story, 110-room TownePlace Suites by Marriott across from the main Mercy campus, and O'Reilly said construction likely would soon begin. The company also has announced plans to build a Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott adjacent to the $116 million Mercy Orthopedic Hospital under development at U.S. Highway 65 and Evans Road. Out-of-state, O'Reilly Hospitality also is scouting potential development sites in Texas and Arizona.
O'Reilly added he has learned his hospitality risk philosophy differs from that of Hammons.
"The guy wasn't scared of anything. Any investment - nothing was too big," O'Reilly said. "I don't really have that. I'm not near the risk taker. I don't want to detract from what Mr. Hammons did, because no one could compete with his success, but hopefully we can take a small piece of what he did and try to replicate it."[[In-content Ad]]
