Editor's Note: Some linked articles may be behind subscription paywalls.
1. Planned Nashville Edition hotel secures $371.5 million in financing
Walker & Dunlop secured $371.5 million in financing for the development of The Nashville Edition Hotel & Residences, according to a news release. Madison Realty Capital and KSL Capital Partners are providing the funding.
The luxury property, which will be built in the Gulch neighborhood, will feature 261 hotel rooms and 84 residences. It will also offer restaurants and bars, amenity programming, a spa, a golf simulator, 3,800 square feet of combined ballroom and pre-function space, a rooftop pool and bar and separate hotel and residential lobbies and gyms.
2. LA City Council approves ballot measure for hotel tax
The Los Angeles City Council approved a June ballot measure that would temporarily raise the city's hotel occupancy tax of 14% by 2 percentage points when it hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028, the Los Angeles Times reports. The tax would be reduced in 2029 to 15%.
The city estimates the 2% increase would generate an additional $44 million per fiscal year, and the 1% increase in 2029 would bring in half that amount. The council intends that tax revenue to go toward general city services, including emergency services and parks and sidewalks repair.
Voters will decide on the ballot measure in June.
3. Hilton CEO 'increasingly optimistic' about building tailwinds
In Hilton's fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings report, President and CEO Chris Nassetta said the company saw strong performance through the end of last year and expects to further improvement moving forward.
"As we look ahead to 2026, we are increasingly optimistic about the tailwinds building, including improving demand patterns, driven by broader macroeconomic growth and major global and domestic events, which, when paired with limited supply growth, should result in stronger [revenue per available room] performance.
For the fourth quarter, Hilton reported systemwide RevPAR of $110.89, a 0.5% year-over-year increase, due mostly to average daily rate growth of 0.9% to $159.25. For full-year 2025, it reported RevPAR of $114.39, a 0.4% year-over-year increase, due to ADR growth of 0.5% to $159.89. The company opened 97,000 rooms for the full year, resulting in net unit growth of 6.7% compared to the end of 2024.
For CoStar News Hotels' Natalie Harm's reporting on Hilton's earnings call, click here.
4. FAA closes, reopens airspace around El Paso
The Federal Aviation Administration initially closed the airspace around El Paso, Texas, for 10 days but ended up reopening it hours later, the Associated Press reports. The FAA website said the closure was for "special security reasons" but did not provide further details.
"The FAA said in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and that all flights will resume," the AP reports.
The 10-day closure was expected to create significant disruptions due to the length of the closure and the size of the El Paso metropolitan area.
5. US added 130,000 jobs in January
The U.S. Department of Labor reports the economy added 130,000 jobs in January, beating economists estimates, according to the Wall Street Journal. The unemployment rate has dropped to 4.3%.
The latest data also showed sharper revisions of previous job reporting. The U.S. added only 1.2 million jobs in 2024, down from the prior 2 million estimate. In 2025, the labor market only added 181,000 jobs instead of 584,000.