Relatives sells Sunshine Viking Lodge in Daytona immediately after 50 yrs in enterprise
This previous week marked the conclusion of an era for both of those Gary and Barbara Brown as nicely as the Daytona Seashore area hospitality industry. Very last Wednesday, the couple sold the Sun Viking Lodge, the oceanfront hotel they have owned since 1971.
The new proprietors of the 94-room hotel at 2411 S. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Seaside Shores are Ty and Tovah Lohman of Ormond Beach front.
The June 30 sale arrived just three months after the Brown relatives celebrated the 50th anniversary of the hotel’s opening.
“We are honored that Gary and Barbara chose us to promote to,” claimed Ty Lohman in a cellphone job interview. “There had been at minimum two other bidders.”
Sun Viking Lodge’s staff astonished Gary and Barbara Brown with a pair of rocking chairs, each adorned with a bow, on the couple’s very last working day at perform Wednesday, confirmed their son, Greg.
“My parents are staying in the place,” mentioned Greg Brown, 47, “They are just retiring and having it easy. They approach on sneaking in and swimming in the (hotel’s) swimming pools once in a while.”
Greg Brown will keep on as general supervisor, a purpose he has held the earlier 12 years. The Sun Viking Lodge employs 35 people. Ty Lohman claimed he and his spouse strategy to retain the total team.
“We’ve obtained a housekeeper who’s been with us 32 many years,” mentioned Greg Brown. He stated acquiring a customer who would keep the employees as effectively as the traditions and quality of the hotel was critical to his mothers and fathers. “I might say about 30% of our team have been with us over 10 years.”
Greg Brown and his sister Karla Ryan ended up pupils at Father Lopez Significant University in Daytona Beach front at the identical time as Ty Lohman. “Karla was a classmate of Ty’s,” Greg Brown stated.
Gary and Barbara Brown did not answer to requests for an interview.
Ty and Tovah Lohman are local investors who possess many professional properties in the Daytona Seashore area including the 144-place Times Inn by Wyndham hotel and the 63-room Prolonged Stay of Ormond Seashore hotels throughout from Place Daytona in Ormond Beach.
The pair also have two hotels in Seminole County: the previous Remington Inn & Suites which they have renamed the Altamonte Springs Resort & Suites and the freshly renamed Opal Resort & Suites of Altamonte Springs. The previous is at 450 Douglas Ave., Altamonte Springs. The latter is at 230 W. Point out Street 236.
The two resorts in Altamonte Springs are managed by Ty Lohman’s cousin Chris Lohman who is also a portion-proprietor in all those homes.
Ty and Tovah Lohman also lately teamed up with Ty’s mother and father, Lowell and Nancy, to start progress of a 12-device luxurious townhouse elaborate identified as The Cupola at Oceanside. The enhancement across the avenue from Oceanside Nation Club will be Ormond Beach’s first beachside multifamily household development in additional than a quarter-century.
Brown manufactured significant effects on area
Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Lodging & Hospitality Affiliation of Volusia County, said the Browns have had a large effect on the regional tourism marketplace over the past 50 %-century.
Gary Brown is a longtime board member for the affiliation as very well as a past board member of the Halifax Spot Promotion Authority.
The latter oversees and money the Daytona Seashore Region Convention & Guests Bureau and is just one of 3 tourism ad authorities that current market their respective regions within just Volusia County as vacationer and unique function destinations. The other two are the Southeast Volusia Marketing Authority and the West Volusia Tourism Marketing Authority.
Gary Brown now serves as treasurer for the lodge affiliation, a purpose that will be passed alongside to his son, Greg, at the association’s August board assembly, stated Davis.
“Gary and his wife (Barbara) are one of the cornerstones of the hospitality marketplace in our region,” reported John Betros. place general supervisor of the 132-place Daytona Seaside Regency and 116-home The Cove On Ormond Seaside, in an interview in January.
Davis mentioned Brown “has been a godsend for the marketplace. He presents good sights as to where we are, what Daytona Beach front is, what our custom is, and what a compact (resort) proprietor has to go via to survive. He’s normally presented me clear course, both of those as a pal and as a hotelier.”
Gary Brown’s depth of information about the Daytona Beach front current market will be challenging to swap, said Evelyn High-quality, president of Mid-Florida Internet marketing & Research. In that part, Fine has documented Volusia County tourism facts considering that 1976.
She remembers the beneficial input that Brown available during his time on the HAAA board and its different committees all through the 1980s and 1990s, a time marked by the escalating impact of specific events these types of as college or university spring split.
“He was a stalwart, that is for positive,” Good said. “He usually had one thing vital to say about what it was like to be an impartial hotelier and, at that time, they had been primarily impartial hoteliers.”
Gary Brown also was exceedingly proficient about the vacation practices and expectations of the visitors that stayed at his loved ones-oriented hotel, Fine explained.
“He was considerate about what he did to continue to keep his attendees coming back more than and in excess of again,” Fine reported. “He recognized who they ended up and what was important to them. They appreciated a relatives atmosphere, an operator who was there so they could communicate to him.”
Greg Brown claimed he grew up “in and close to the hotel marketplace” and appears to be ahead to getting to be much more actively involved in the Lodging & Hospitality Association.
Lodge sale is 2nd on Daytona’s beachside this 12 months
The sale of the Sunlight Viking Lodge comes on the heels of the shifting arms of the Nautilus Inn down the street in January. The 99-room lodge at 1515 S. Atlantic Ave. was marketed for $8 million to the builders of the Daytona Seashore Challenging Rock Hotel, Asante Asset Management Inc., led by Abbas Abdulhussein.
Tim Davis, a industrial Realtor with SVN Alliance Industrial Genuine Estate Advisors in Ormond Seashore, helped broker the sale of the Nautilus Inn. He also approached Gary Brown before this year on behalf of a shopper that was interested in probably acquiring the Solar Viking Lodge.
“It wasn’t stated for sale, but Gary Brown make it crystal clear that if an individual were to make a reasonable provide, he’d be prepared to take into account selling,” Davis claimed.
“Hotels have been distressed through COVID, so it truly is almost certainly a fantastic time (for traders) to glimpse at motels,” mentioned Davis who added that it is likely that a lot more hotels locally could modify fingers in the near potential.
“With Gary, there was definitely no distress,” Davis said of the Sunshine Viking Lodge. “He was only heading to be interested if he could get a quality rate.”
Greg Brown verified that the Sunshine Viking Lodge continues to be “a strong organization.”
“For the pandemic, we did extremely well. We believed we ended up likely to get strike harder than we did. We acquired lucky. And now our organization is rebounding,” he reported.
“My dad and mom had gotten lots of offers (to market) more than the several years,” Greg Brown included. He stated his mother and father ultimately agreed to offer to the Lohmans simply because, “the timing was ideal and it was also the right buyer. They felt at ease that Ty and Tovah will hold the exact traditions, environment, quality and requirements.”
Ty Lohman declined to say how much he and his spouse compensated for the Solar Viking Lodge, but confirmed that “it was a premium cost. (Gary and Barbara Brown) definitely obtained good industry for it.”
Lohman declined to say whether or not the sale amount was much more or considerably less than the $8 million that the Nautilus Inn fetched, but acknowledged that the two lodges are equivalent in measurement.
“We are going to continue to keep the Solar Viking identify,” Ty Lohman mentioned. “It truly is a good family members hotel. They have received routines for children as effectively as a motion picture evening that we are also going to hold. It is really genuinely a lot more of a resort.”
The Sunlight Viking Lodge’s facilities include a 60-foot h2o slide and indoor and out of doors pools.
Lohman obtained commence in funeral dwelling business
Ty Lohman and his mothers and fathers and uncle Victor ran the Ormond Beach front-dependent Lohman Funeral Houses chain for lots of years till advertising the company to a nationwide enterprise in 2012. At the time of its sale it had developed to come to be the greatest loved ones-owned funeral residence chain in the point out.
Ty and his parents used some of the proceeds of that sale to devote in apartment qualities both in the Daytona Beach region as nicely as Orlando and Jacksonville.
They commenced promoting off their condominium qualities as the benefit for them rose. In the previous few of yrs, Ty has reinvested his earnings from individuals transactions into business properties. They incorporate the 7-story Cobb Cole Center office tower in downtown Daytona Seaside, the Aliki Plaza and Renaissance Center retail facilities in Ormond Beach, and the Speedway Village retail middle on West Intercontinental Speedway Boulevard, throughout the street from Daytona Worldwide Speedway.
Ty’s spouse Tovah is a authentic estate broker who owns Starr Realty. Their keeping organization for the Times Inn and Prolonged Stay lodges future to the Interstate 95/U.S. 1 interchange throughout from Place Daytona is termed Starr Hospitality. The minimal legal responsibility organization they established when they acquired the Sunlight Viking Lodge is termed TL3 Solar Viking LLC.
Ty Lohman claimed he and his spouse intend to retain their Volusia County lodges as prolonged-phrase investments.
“We hope to have our son Tristen do the job with us someday,” extra Tovah Lohman. The couple’s son is 12.
Ty and Tovah Lohman also not long ago bought two condominium complexes in Daytona Beach front: the Whispering Oaks Townhomes and Southern Villas Flats up coming doorway. Both of those are along South Nova Road, involving Bellevue Avenue and Beville Road.
Bob Davis, who is not related to Tim, explained he not long ago spoke with Ty Lohman about his obtain of the Sun Viking Lodge and arrived absent amazed.
“He’s a youthful, vivacious guy who’s now receiving concerned in hospitality. I welcome new people today to the hospitality marketplace,” Bob Davis said. “I also know the Lohman relatives effectively. They arrive with a status for being neighborhood minded.”
Bob Davis mentioned he would count on Ty and Tovah Lohman to make some enhancements to the Solar Viking Lodge, but included, “it will not consider a great deal. The Brown spouse and children has retained their home in idea-top shape.”
Ty Lohman confirmed plans to commit somewhere around a 50 %-million bucks on improvements to the Sun Viking Lodge. “We’re going to renovate the pool place. Greg also has a want list of other issues for us to update,” he explained.
‘Families are connecting’
When the Browns initial opened their resort in 1971, there was a ton of area communicate about the possible effects of a new tourist attraction that would open up later that year in Orlando.
“There was a good deal of speculation about regardless of whether Disney Globe would help Daytona or hurt Daytona,” Gary Brown said earlier this calendar year as the Solar Viking Lodge marked its 50th anniversary in April. “If you seem at record, I consider it did each.”
As Disney’s mammoth empire loomed at any time-much larger, the Sun Viking Lodge endured.
It weathered gasoline shortages, wars, wildfires, economic downturns, the affect of the Sept. 11th attacks and, most a short while ago, the coronavirus pandemic.
The hotel’s unique identify, Brown defined, was not christened till nearly a ten years after the lodge experienced opened as the Oceanfront Villas.
Brown and his wife, Barbara, ended up embarking on a 1970s trip cruise in Miami when he appeared throughout the harbor and noticed a further ship, the Sun Viking.
“There ended up 20 resorts with ‘Ocean’ in their title,” Brown mentioned. “We had been normally acquiring baffled with a person else. I said, ‘Why really don’t we put a Viking ship out there?’”
A different of the hotel’s signature characteristics, its child-friendly 60-foot waterslide, was an concept inspired by a visit to River Region, a recently opened water park at Disney Entire world in the 1970s, Brown stated.
In April, the Browns claimed that the solution of the hotel’s longevity was designed on interactions and reminiscences that have kept longtime friends returning.
“To me, the people are connecting,” Barbara said at the time. “The young ones are not applying their telephones when they are going down the waterslide or enjoying games or swimming or browsing. It could not be the newest hotel on the beach, but years later on, they’re going to keep in mind connecting as a family members.”
