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The LaGrange-Troup Chamber of Commerce celebrated the city’s new hotel with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday afternoon.

StayAPT Suites is an upscale independent extended-stay hotel. The brand is new to LaGrange, but the company is expanding with locations in several states.

“We’ll open our 40th soon. We’re an independent brand. We’re not affiliated with a big hotel like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, but we’ve got over 50 hotels in our pipeline right now,” said Jennifer Kearney, Chief Marketing Officer for Stay APT.

“Our target is extended stay, so seven nights or more. People don’t live with us. Most people who stay with us have their own homes. They’re staying with us for work, whether they’re on a business project, or they may be relocating to an area or having their home remodeled,” Kearney said.

Unlike many of the extended stay hotels that many may be familiar with, StayAPT offers a more upscale experience. The rooms don’t have just a kitchenette with a mini-fridge. Every room has a kitchen with a stove, full-size refrigerator and even a dishwasher.

The rooms are more of a hybrid between a small apartment and a hotel room, Kearney said. 

Walking in during a tour of the rooms, they look more like an apartment than a hotel room. It’s not until you walk back to the sleeping area do they look like a hotel. The big difference is that they don’t have multi-bedroom suites. The rooms come equipped with the choice of a king-size bed or two full-size beds, and that’s it aside from a pullout sofa.

Kearney said the only room with multiple bedrooms is for the onsite resident manager. She said that’s another feature of their brand. Having a resident manager who lives at the location offers more security and help in the event of an emergency.

“They treat it as their home, and if there is a bad element. They don’t want them in their home,” she said.

“About 85 to 87 percent of our guests own homes. That’s the difference. It’s not that they are looking for alternative housing. Most everyone has jobs. They are renovating their home, or they are traveling for work purposes,” Kearney said. “One thing that you will never see at any of our hotels, a school bus. One will never be pulling up. It’s cost-prohibitive.”

Kearney said their monthly rates run around $2,600 per month.

“That’s a solid, very nice mortgage,” she said.

“If you are people who the police are being called constantly, we don’t put up with any of that. One of the reasons we have this courtyard – and you can’t get in without a key card – is we wanted an outdoor space for our guests to relax, use the grill, sit by the fire pit, read a book, whatever, with no solicitations,” Kearney said.

The rooms are for travellers who want more of a home experience while they are away from home. Kearney said many of their work travel guests rent a month or two and have the convenience of leaving their clothes in their rooms when they go home for the weekend.

“We’re able to have all the amenities of an apartment, the comforts of an apartment, with the flexibility of a hotel. There’s no lease. Utilities are included. Wi-Fi is included. We have housekeeping just like a hotel would have, but the style of our room is very residential,” Kearney said. 

StayAPT’s target is seven-plus-night guests, but they do have guests who stay for a weekend as well as nightly rates.

“We were surprised when we opened our first hotel back in 2020, how many leisure and transient guests love this product,” Kearney said. “People just want more space, and even if they’re not going to cook an entire meal, just having those conveniences available is important.”