NEW YORK — Hospitality has always been about more than just dollar investment for Rockbridge CEO and founder Jimmy Merkel.
In the 26 years since he started the Columbus, Ohio-based firm, Merkel has diversified the company into a multisport player that develops, invests in and manages hotels around the country that range from standard branded fare to bespoke independent boutique hotels.
Now Merkel is taking Rockbridge into the next level of hospitality — membership clubs.
In a video interview held at the recent NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum, Merkel described Rockbridge's new platform as "a private club and residences business ... that will complement and leverage the infrastructure we have."
In the company's home base of Columbus, Rockbridge and Edwards Cos. are developing a 32-story, $430-million mixed-use tower called The Merchant Building, which will include office floors, a club and residences element, hotel floors, and a social club with a pool, a library and separate guestrooms. Other membership-club projects are in the works in Denver and Houston, Merkel said.
"This gives us more critical mass and there are more operating synergies that will complement the whole platform," he said.
It's a move that complements Rockbridge's expansion in recent years to independent, luxury-lifestyle hotels.
Last year Rockbridge bought the Menger Hotel and Crockett Hotel in San Antonio, along with the Overton Hotel in Lubbock, Texas. In 2024, it purchased the three ZaZa-branded hotels in Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas. In 2023, Rockbridge opened The Junto in Columbus.
Independent lifestyle hotels have been a solid investment for Rockbridge for a while, Merkel said. Rockbridge's Makeready division manages nearly 3,000 independent lifestyle rooms in 13 hotels across the company, along with restaurants, bars and coffee shops.
"We look for the right markets within a market," he said. "The right locations, the right assets."
Then in those locations, Merkel said Rockbridge excels in transforming its lifestyle hotels into "destinations in and of themselves."
It's all about keying in on that hotel — or restaurant or membership club — the guest wants, which is never restricted to just one place.
"The thing about the hotel business and travel in general is that people, by definition, are overwhelmingly from somewhere else," he said. "People that are traveling to New York are also traveling to Texas and Columbus and Nashville and Denver. They want the same things, and we're satisfying that demand in markets that are pro-growth and that are growing in population."
For more from Rockbridge's Jimmy Merkel, watch the video above or listen to it as a podcast.