Roger Hill, Gettys’ founder and CEO, called it an “almost a once in a lifetime opportunity.” Jeffrey Brice Ornstein, founder and CEO of J/Brice Design, said it was the “fire sale of my career.” It is the opportunity present today for developers and owners to renovate their hotels, according to a panel at the Midwest Lodging Investors Summit earlier this week in Chicago.

Jeffrey Brice Ornstein, right, Melissa Papp and Roger Hill

With the recession turning into recovery, material and labor prices still low and many architects, designers, engineers and construction looking for work, the panel offered ways to get the most for your money.

“The best way to spend a dollar and make it look like two is by working with the owners and developers,” said Hill, whose firm also invests and develops properties in addition to design and procurement. Ornstein agreed the key was to have a cohesive team, from owner to operator to objective. He also said the recession has “in a strange way made the usually polarized PIP (property improvement plan) situation more team oriented and not a battle between owner and brand.”

The third panelist, a manager of interior design for Carlson Hotels’ select-service division, Melissa Papp, said with a limited budget the key was finding the intimate guest touch points like bedding. “Good design translates into good guest experience,” she said, which would then translate into revenue for the owners.

The others agreed. “We want to make a hotel profitable,” Ornstein said. Hill added when designers accomplish that, the clients come back for more and Ornstein joked he didn’t want to have to find a new hotelier every month.

The process of good design, especially on a tight budget, begins early, long before anything is picked or purchased. “Take time to know your hotel,” Papp said. “Stay in the property and experience it like a guest. And then stay at the competition.” Hill added his firm even likes to talk with some of the property’s top customers, like meeting planners, when discussing renovation plans to get a better idea of what the guest wants.

William Edmundson, left, Roger Hill and Melissa Papp

And the biggest mistake owners can make, Hill and Ornstein agreed, was when they aren’t forthright with the budget. “Caginess with budgets is counterproductive,” Ornstein said. The designers said they wanted to know the budget and wanted to come in under budget to ensure profitability for the owner, and a return assignment for them.

The panel was moderated by William Edmundson, the new CEO of Abby Office Centers, who previously led Choice Hotels’ foray into the upscale segment with the limited-service Cambria Suites.