Hotelier Patel expands holdings by buying Solla-Carcaba Building at 88 Riberia Street

Could there be an antitrust lawsuit in the future of St. Augustine tourism?   The United States Supreme Court has decided that hotels affect interstate commerce, in the landmark civil rights case of Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964).

Local anti-union hotel monopolist and real estate speculator KANTI PATEL has purchased yet another property.

Does PATEL want to create affordable housing? Or does he wish to twist zoning laws (again) to destroy St. Augustine's unique character -- turning two office buildings into hotels?

We'll just see about that.

From former Mayor George Gardner's St. Augustine Report:

Hotelier Patel expands holdings  

    St. Augustine's hotel business is good, and apparently can get better, according to the city's most successful hotelier.

Kanti Patel, whose Jalaram Hotels owns six properties here, has added to his holdings the former Exchange Bank building on Cathedral Place, purchased in January for $10 million under Kasam Hospitality, and the Solla-Carcaba building at 88 Riberia Street in September for $2.25 million under Vista Hotel VIII.

The Solla-Carcaba building, a former cigar factory built in the early 1900s, will become a 50-room hotel, Patel says. No plans yet for the Cathedral Place property.

Also among Patel's real estate holdings, the former St Augustine-St Johns County Chamber of Commerce building at 1 Riberia Street, purchased in 2015 for $750,000 under Avak Hotels Group Two Inc.

Patel is in the process of building a Renaissance Hotel on West Castillo Drive and so far has been denied plans for a Hilton Garden Inn on the former Bozard Ford site on North Ponce de Leon Boulevard.

Patel's Jalaram Hotels here include the Hilton Historic Bayfront, Holiday Inn St. Augustine, Hampton Inn Historic, Best Western Bayfront Inn - St. Augustine, Best Western Historical Inn, and Best Western St. Augustine Beach Inn.