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1. Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 25 basis points
The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee voted to reduce the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, bringing the range now to 4% to 4.25%, CoStar News Hotels reports. This is the first cut in rates since December 2024.
“Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year,” the committee said in a statement. “Job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remains low. Inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.”
In related news, the Bank of England held its key rate at 4% and signaled it may slow its pace of cuts moving forward, the Wall Street Journal reports.
2. Virgin Hotels Chicago to become Sports Illustrated hotel
The recently sold Virgin Hotels Chicago will be converted to the Sports Illustrated Resorts brand, reports CoStar News' Ryan Ori. The Chicago property was the first Virgin Hotels location to open.
Virgin Hotels and development partner Lionstone Development sold the hotel to an affiliate of Accelerated Assets in June for $77.4 million. Though Travel + Leisure, the parent company of the Sports Illustrated Resorts brand, did not name the Virgin Hotels property in its announcement, property records match the description provided.
"Chicago is where legends are made," Travel + Leisure COO Geoff Richards said in a statement. "With more than 40 championship trophies across 11 professional and college teams, this city breathes sports in a way few places can match, with a passion that runs through generations of fans. With this new resort, we're creating a destination where that same championship spirit lives year-round, combining the rich storytelling tradition of Sports Illustrated with the unmatched energy that makes Chicago home to some of the world's most devoted fans."
3. Austin officials, hoteliers plan workaround for convention center closure
Austin hoteliers will see a significant disruption to demand coming from meetings and conventions for the next year as the city's convention center undergoes a major renovation and expansion project, but local officials have plans in place to keep people coming to the market, reports CoStar News Hotels' Sean McCracken from the 2025 fall meeting of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association.
Visit Austin President and CEO Tom Noonan told HAMA members the $1.6 billion project is expected to be complete by December 2028, and in the meantime, they're doing everything they can to keep the demand up.
"We've got about 60 people in sales and marketing together," he said. "We had ownership groups, and we have people from destination marketing companies. We had transportation companies, and ... We had everybody together talking about how we market the city during those years. And so the idea is that, yeah, we're going to incentivize a lot of in-house business. We're going to do things that we're calling like 'mini-wides' versus city-wides."
4. Park Hotels recasts $2 billion in credit facilities
Hotel real estate investment trust Park Hotels & Resorts has completed recasting its existing credit agreement, increasing its capacity under a senior secured revolving credit facility from $950 million to $1 billion and adding a new senior unsecured delayed draw term loan facility for up to $800 million, according to a news release. The new credit agreement also provides for a senior unsecured term loan in its original principal amount of $200 million incurred in May 2024.
The recast senior secured revolving credit facility also has an extended termination date, moving from Dec. 1, 2026, to Sept. 17, 2029. The new senior unsecured delayed draw term loan facility, or 2025 Term Facility, has a maturity date of Jan. 2, 2030.
Park plans to draw from the 2025 Term Facility in 2026 to repay its $123 million secured mortgage loan for the Hyatt Regency Boston hotel that matures in July 2026. This combined with the financing transaction planned in the first half of 2026, will allow it to fully repay the $1.275 billion secured mortgage loan on the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort maturing in November 2026.
5. US weekly initial jobless claims drop by 33,000
The U.S. Department of Labor reported the number of initial jobless claims for the week ending Sept. 13 decreased by 33,000 to 231,000, according to the Associated Press. This comes a week after initial weekly claims reached a four-year high of 264,000.
The Labor Department also reported the four-week average of claims fell by 750 to 240,000. The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of Sept. 6 declined by 7,000 to 1.92 million.