Relevant Group co-founder Richard Heyman exits firm

Richard Heyman, the co-founder of Relevant Group, a developer set on building a mini-empire of hotels in Hollywood, has left the firm.

Heyman, who helped start the company in 2007 along with Grant King, left Relevant Group this year, The Real Deal has learned. Relevant Group’s operating partner, Dan Daley, confirmed Heyman has left. Heyman could not be reached for comment.

In 2007, Heyman and King came up with a plan to build a mini-empire of hotels in Hollywood, in a two-block radius between Sunset and Hollywood boulevards.

But the pandemic troubled their dreams. The firm ran into rising construction costs and delays, pushing back opening dates for two of their anticipated Hollywood hotels: the 212-room Tommiel and the 190-room Thompson.

In April, Relevant secured $72 million in “rescue” financing — a three-year, fixed-rate mezzanine loan — for both hotels from New York-based Machine Investment Group. It also got a three-year extension on a $136 million construction loan for both projects.

Now the Thompson is set to open next month, with the Tommie to open in September, Daley said.

The hotels will be run by Relevant Group’s hospitality management firm, while food and beverage will be managed by a hospitality firm that Daley recently founded himself, called Ten Five Hospitality.

Relevant’s portfolio of open and operating properties — which only includes its Dream hotel in Hollywood — is now performing “phenomenally,” Daley said. Earlier this month, the hotel’s general manager Vaughn Davis told CoStar the hotel is “on the mend,” with the majority of bookings for short-term leisure.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Ten Five Hospitality will only manage food and beverage at both the Tommie and Thompson hotels.