JR Hospitality quietly scooped up two Bloomington airport-area hotels this week, adding 259 rooms to the busy stretch that feeds the Mall of America and Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. The deal is a clear wager that the long-planned indoor water park at the mall will eventually send a fresh surge of leisure travelers through the south metro, and it pushes JR Hospitality deeper into turf developers have eyed for years.
According to the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal, JR Hospitality bought two Bloomington airport hotels that together total 259 rooms. The owner told the paper it is positioning the properties to capture visitors expected to pour in if the Mall of America's planned $300 million water park becomes a reality.
Mall of America Plans Still Shaping Demand
The Mall of America's proposed indoor water park, variously sized at several hundred million dollars in recent coverage, remains the central selling point behind much of the new hotel maneuvering in Bloomington. The project still needs key financing and approvals and has sparked debate among city leaders and lawmakers over using public incentives to help make it happen, as reported by the Star Tribune.
A Familiar Playbook
JR Hospitality is not exactly new to this game near the Mall and the airport. The company previously picked up land for a planned Hyatt House in 2018, a move that highlighted its strategy of chasing tourism tied to the Mall of America. Earlier reporting by the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal shows JR Hospitality has been active in the South Loop with both hotel projects and land deals close to the mall.
Numbers That Matter
Mall of America pulls in more than 40 million visitors a year, according to mall owner Triple Five, making it one of the region's biggest tourism engines. Supporters of the water park project have floated projections that it would add hundreds of thousands of visits annually and push hotel demand higher. Those rosy numbers, along with proposed public subsidies to help finance the park, have divided local officials and residents, according to reporting.
For now, JR Hospitality's latest buys simply bulk up hotel inventory along the airport corridor while the Mall of America water park plan crawls through public review. The transactions were first reported by the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.
