Nearly 200 revamped guest rooms and a refreshed ground-level bar are just a preview
of more improvements to come to 225 Powell St., where the former Villa Florence Union
Square has reopened under new owners as The Barnes.
By Alex Barreira  –  Staff Reporter, San Francisco Business Times
Jan 5, 2023 Updated Jan 5, 2023, 3:11pm PST
Listen to this article     5 min
San Francisco’s former Villa Florence Union Square hotel at 225 Powell St. has quietly
reopened to guests with a new look and new flag under its new owners.
Now dubbed The Barnes and managed by Spire Hospitality, the hotel opened in
December after a multimillion-dollar revamp of all 189-rooms. The hotel isn’t done —
further capital improvements to the lobby and restaurant are on the way, but in the
meantime the ground-level restaurant has been refreshed and reopened as a kind of
entry point to that ultimate concept, also pegged for late 2023.
Rooms start at $179 per night for a 252-square-foot room with a queen bed, and pets
can come too for a $50 per stay fee. See our slideshow for a walk through the rooms and
mid-evolution lobby bar and restaurant.
New York-based AWH Partners and capital partner The Roxborough Group, based in
San Francisco, acquired the hotel from Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in Sept. 2021 for $87.5
million, or $462,963 per key, seeing the down time as an ideal one to invest in a
historically exceptional market. Its AWH’s and Spire’s only San Francisco hotel.
Including the future work, the full repositioning is expected to wrap up by the end of the
year for a total investment of around $12 million. That’s about the same cost as
Pebblebrook earmarked for its renovations to several properties that were delayed by
the pandemic and only partially mapped out (but fortunately in this case, permitted)
ahead of the change in ownership.
While some Union Square and downtown hotels took their time reopening in 2021 amid
sluggish demand, The Barnes’s debut mid-way through its revamp shows the owners’
aggressive bet on the nearer-term recovery of the city, said Richard Sandoval, vice
president of operations who oversees West Coast hotels for Irving, TX.-based Spire
Hospitality, which is owned by AWH Partners.
“We literally took over the hotel in September and swung a hammer in October, so it
was pretty aggressive,” he said. “The owners could have sat on the sidelines, but they
wanted to help and be part of the recovery.”

The established opening comes in time for the 41st annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare
Conference Jan 9. – Jan. 12 — the most important corporate event for this slower time of
the year — and the return of tourists from Western Europe, Mexico and Canada who can
take the Powell Street cable car line nearly to the doorstep.
“2023 already feels tangibly different,” Sandoval said. He noted foot traffic for Union
Square for the last week of December was up over 60% year-over-year, as measured by
reports using smartphone location data. “People complain it’s not 2019, but there’s
many good things we’re already seeing.”
The hotel’s branding and design was configured in-house and with input from local
architect Gensler, some of the original elements softened and others strengthened to
broaden appeals for today’s post-Covid world, resulting in “a Western European
aesthetic to the building but a very contemporary San Francisco space,” Sandoval said.

The established opening comes in time for the 41st annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare
Conference Jan 9. – Jan. 12 — the most important corporate event for this slower time of
the year — and the return of tourists from Western Europe, Mexico and Canada who can
take the Powell Street cable car line nearly to the doorstep.
"2023 already feels tangibly different," Sandoval said. He noted foot traffic for Union
Square for the last week of December was up over 60% year-over-year, as measured by
reports using smartphone location data. "People complain it's not 2019, but there's
many good things we're already seeing."
The hotel's branding and design was configured in-house and with input from local
architect Gensler, some of the original elements softened and others strengthened to
broaden appeals for today's post-Covid world, resulting in "a Western European
aesthetic to the building but a very contemporary San Francisco space," Sandoval said.