Highgate is a hotel management, investment, technology and development firm headquartered in New York with a roughly 30-year track record and a portfolio spanning North America, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. The company acquires, repositions and operates full-service and select-service hotels, and its development arm oversees capital improvement and renovation programs on assets it manages. Highgate manages the Crowne Plaza Manhattan Times Square, the 22-story, 685-key property on Seventh Avenue that reopened on Sept. 2, 2026 as Crowne Plaza’s Americas flagship after a multi-year renovation developed by Al Rayyan Tourism Investment Company. Occupied hotel repositioning of that scale is a recurring part of the firm’s work in dense urban markets.
Highgate was founded in 1988 by brothers Mahmood and Mehdi Khimji, who remain co-chairmen of the board. Mehdi is based in London and leads the European growth strategy, which is a fair description of how the company splits its attention. The firm organises itself around four businesses rather than one: management, development, investment management, and Highgate Technology Ventures, a venture and growth-equity arm investing in hospitality and travel technology across North America and Europe.
For anyone on the construction side, the relevant part sits inside the management business. Highgate runs an in-house design and construction studio called LUCID, and a separate in-house brand strategy team that builds hospitality concepts with outside architects, designers and food-and-beverage partners. Its asset management scope is spelled out in unusual detail: PIP negotiation, ROI analyses, technical services and development, construction oversight, renovation planning and development management on the renewal side; site selection, feasibility, construction financing and capital raising, FF&E procurement and concept design on the planning side. That covers work an owner would otherwise buy from three or four separate consultants.
Highgate states that its development team averages fifteen years of hotel development experience, that it has led more than 1.5 billion dollars in hotel construction and renovation projects, and that it is currently executing or planning 1.2 billion dollars of capital projects. Value maximisation of urban mixed-use assets through acquisition, repositioning and monetisation is the stated speciality, along with achieving efficient use of space and construction design across the portfolio.
One line of business is easy to miss. Through affiliates, Highgate works with lenders across the United States on loan resolution, preparing workout evaluations and acting as receiver, and says it has served in that capacity on more than 200 financially distressed hotels spanning large urban branded and independent assets, lifestyle, luxury, resort and select-service properties. Highgate Select, the division covering select service, limited service and extended stay, also runs its own ground-up development platform.
Contractors and consultants engaging with Highgate will usually deal with a business unit rather than the parent. Each segment of the portfolio operates as a focused unit with its own dedicated support team.
