NASHVILLE — Cobblestone Hotels kicked off its 2024 conference at the Renaissance Hotel this weekend with words of assurance from President of Development Jeremy Griesbach: Contrary to rumors, he said, the small brand of 158 properties is not being acquired by a larger company. Griesbach emphasized this point by holding up a large “Not For Sale” sign to cheers from the crowd of approximately 350 attendees. “People are often afraid to ask questions of myself when they hear these things,” he said, and encouraged the franchisees and managers in the room to contact the brand’s leadership if they hear rumors about the Neenah, Wis.-based company’s future.

Cobblestone currently has 158 hotels open, another 10 under active construction and more than 30 in its pipeline. While the company is gaining ground in new markets, Griesbach emphasized that its mission of focusing on small towns is still a priority. “If we just stick in the 28 states we’re in right now and work on infill, we’ve got enough projects that probably last us about 140 years—and that should get me close to my retirement,” he quipped.

Beyond small towns, Griesbach said Cobblestone would also focus on maintaining the small-company mindset and corporate culture the late founder and CEO Brian Wogernese envisioned. “He prepared us to continue moving forward, to grow the brand, to develop core brand strategies,” Griesbach said of Wogernese, who died in late 2022. “With everything he’s taught us, we’re at least 95 percent of the time doing what Brian would have done.”

New Brand, New Prototypes

One of Wogernese’s final projects was Cobblestone’s Riverstone Suites extended-stay brand, which made its debut last month in Chippewa Falls, Wis. The four-story hotel has 58 suite-style rooms with full kitchens, while public spaces include laundry facilities, a fitness center and a self-serve convenience store.

Instead of seeking franchisees to take a chance on the new brand, the Cobblestone team decided to make the debut Riverstone a corporate-owned property. “When we come up with new concepts and new ideas, we’re going to spend our money and our time testing it and learning it and figuring it out before we roll it out,” Griesbach said. “There’s a lot of opportunity and potential for this brand as we get our arms wrapped around it and start to take it to market.”

Brand President Josie Kilgore agreed: “We’re really researching the markets and seeing what’s going to work in each one,” she said of the project.

As the company adjusts its prototypes across its brands, it has settled on room counts, with 45 rooms being the smallest number of rooms available while 86 is the largest for its Main Street model.

Property Improvements

Now that the Cobblestone brand is 16 years old, Griesbach said it was ready to mature in certain ways. Many of its hotels are between eight and 12 years old—or even older, he noted. “They need some love. They need investment.” To that end, the corporate team plans to be “really firm” on property improvement plans in the coming years, he continued. “We’re going to do everything we can to work with [the] franchisees, but if they’re not willing to reinvest in it, we are not going to risk our brand and standards and the image of what the Cobblestone brand has built over the last 16 years.”

The company is planning to build between 10 and 15 new hotels per year, Griesbach said—but he also acknowledged that requiring PIPs and adherence to brand standards could mean more properties leave the system. Cobblestone lost four hotels in the last year, and Griesbach cautioned that the number might grow as the brand matures. Anticipating that some owners might protest the requirements, Griesbach emphasized that they need to reinvest in their hotels to keep guests coming back. “Keep trying to get better,” he urged the crowd. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we maintain the brand consistency of Cobblestone.”

Kilgore, in turn, noted that some owners have proactively begun updating their hotels, making PIPs unnecessary. “We’re going to want to be smart about it,” Griesbach said of the PIP requirements and strategies.

New Partnership

A notable new development is Cobblestone’s affiliation with hospitality tech company Stayntouch for the company’s new property-management system. Kilgore noted that some properties had been using three different systems for different departments. “The integration ability with our previous vendor was extremely limited,” she said. Using one system, however, would consolidate all responsibilities.

The company began rolling out Stayntouch to its properties in May, and within the first 90 days, 135 hotels had installed it, with Stayntouch covering all of the initial costs. The collaboration will create new opportunities for owners as new hotels open, Kilgore added, noting that the debut Riverstone will get a check-in kiosk through the partnership.

Currently, Griesbach calculated that Cobblestone has 8,100 rooms across its portfolio thus far. The leadership team is aiming to reach 10,000 by 2027.