Cambria Hotel St. Petersburg – Madeira Beach Marina

Lou Plasencia

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 42 Years

As the firm’s Chairman and CEO, Lou Plasencia is responsible for The Plasencia Group’s business development activities and the oversight of all acquisitions, dispositions, and advisory engagements. He began his career with Hyatt Hotels Corporation over thirty years ago. After his departure from Hyatt, Lou spent a number of years growing the hospitality investment sales division of a major national commercial real estate firm.

A natural trailblazer, the father of three eventually left the corporate environment in 1993 to launch his own firm, The Plasencia Group, a boutique alternative to corporate hotel brokerage. The close-knit firm was born out of passion and sheer gumption. The oldest of three siblings, Lou arrived in Tampa’s cigar-making district as a young Cuban immigrant, living with his family in a one-room apartment. He is the son of a cigar factory worker who he says instilled in him the importance of “committing yourself to one thing and doing it ethically and better than anyone else.”

As an undergrad at Loyola University in New Orleans, he studied psychology and broadcast media before going on to get his master’s in education from Indiana University. After serving as a Student Affairs administrator at Indiana and then at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Lou landed a job in sales and marketing department at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. He eventually returned to Tampa to oversee the development of the Grand Hyatt on the shores of Tampa Bay. From there, he launched a long and storied career in hotel investment sales and consulting and is recognized today as one of the most experienced hotel real estate advisors in the country.

During his three-plus decades as the face of The Plasencia Group, Lou has steered a plethora of heavy-hitting hospitality deals, including one-off transactions and major portfolio disposition engagements. Over the years, he has brought together owners and investors for the InterContinental Hotels in Chicago and Miami, the Four Seasons in Atlanta, Amelia Island Resort in Northeast Florida, PGA National in Palm Beach, the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, and the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. Recognized for his integrity and deal savvy, he has served as a trusted advisor for Apollo Global, Brookfield Asset Management, Hilton Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, MetLife Real Estate Investments, Starwood Capital, and Walton Street Capital. Other transaction and consulting clients include Bank of America, Blackstone Group, Host Hotels & Resorts, PGIM, RLJ Lodging Trust and countless family offices and high-net-worth hotel and resort owners.

Lou is an active member of the Hospitality Investment Roundtable of the AHLA. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Florida Council of 100, the Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council, the Advisory Board for Visit Tampa Bay, and chairs the School Advisory Council of St. Lawrence Parish in Tampa. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of Jesuit High School (Tampa).

A longtime resident of Tampa, he is proud to work alongside his three sons (Chris, Nick and John) in the family business. Lou has been married for four decades to his wife Jennifer, with whom he enjoys cooking, traveling, and playing “off the grid.” If he doesn’t answer his cell phone, it’s because he’s out fishing or hiking a forest.

“One of my favorite words in my native Spanish is “confianza”. It’s the close trust that builds in a friendship over time. It’s the very real affection we have for our longstanding clients. It’s also something we work hard to earn and, most importantly, it lasts a lifetime.”

Nick Plasencia

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 14 Years

Nick Plasencia is a Managing Director with The Plasencia Group and specializes in the disposition of full-service, premium select-service, boutique, and resort properties, both in single-asset and portfolio transactions. He has personally transacted nearly $2 billion of lodging assets across all regions of the United States. Mr. Plasencia has had the opportunity to advise a wide breadth of clientele, ranging from privately held owner-operators and high-net-worth individuals, to management companies, private equity funds, and REITs.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Plasencia worked in the Real Estate Investment Banking group of Raymond James & Associates, a publicly traded financial services firm, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, and private placements. While at Raymond James, Mr. Plasencia was integrally involved in capital raising assignments in the lodging sector, including preferred and common stock offerings.

Nick is a graduate of Harvard University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. During summer breaks, he worked in operations positions at properties with Marriott International and Quorum Hotels and Resorts, experiences he says helped give him a valuable glimpse into the human element of hotel operations.

Always keen to explore nature or a new city, Nick is a novice runner who credits his outdoorsy wife for whipping him into shape. He enjoys hiking and backpacking during his travels and taking his children for runs in the jogger. Nick is a proud advocate for the Tampa Theater, a historic U.S. theater and city landmark, and has been involved in the Theater’s real estate pursuits and charitable events.

“Our strength is in our team and the unique backgrounds that our team members bring to the table, with experiences in all aspects of the industry, ranging from ownership, to lending, operations, and brands.”

Chris Plasencia

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 12 Years

As a Managing Director at The Plasencia Group, Chris Plasencia has closed nearly $2 billion in hospitality transactions over the course of his career, primarily portfolio and single asset dispositions of resorts and full- and premium select-service hotels. The resident attorney on the team, with a background in drafting, negotiating, and executing a wide variety of real estate deals, Chris is well equipped to handle complex hospitality transactions, while fielding the more-than-occasional attorney joke with grace. In addition to personal involvement with his parish and other local organizations, Chris also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Visit Tampa Bay and the Jesuit High School (Tampa) Board of Trustees. Chris majored in history at Duke University and earned a Master’s degree in real estate from the University of Florida, in addition to his law degree.

When he’s not in the office you can find him spending time with his kids, Claire, Thomas, and Mary, his wife, Katie, whom he’s known since kindergarten, and his golden retriever, Molly. He is the firm’s resident wine connoisseur and makes the second-best barbecue pulled pork in the office.

“I’m going to be with this company for the next 20, 30 years. I’m not looking for quick victories. I’m interested in building long-term relationships.“

Andrew Pappas

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 8 Years

Andrew Pappas, a Tampa Bay area native, joined the Plasencia Group in August 2019 after spending nearly two years as a research analyst in the industrial and retail sectors for the real estate behemoth CBRE, while simultaneously earning his master’s degree in real estate finance at Georgetown University. He finds that working for the more boutique Plascencia Group puts him “in the trenches,” closer to the dealmaking, than his tenure at CBRE, where he focused on market research and quarterly reporting. “It’s definitely an engaging environment here,” he says, “and it’s more professionally satisfying to know that my work directly affects client engagements.”

Andrew supports The Plasencia Group’s lodging transaction and advisory engagements through value and feasibility analysis, investor solicitations, negotiations, due diligence oversight, and deal execution. Andrew is also essential to the development of investment marketing materials, providing memoranda and other supporting content that make properties — from premium-branded select service hotels to independent resort complexes — attractive to potential buyers. He continuously hones his skills by working alongside team members with decades of experience across the industry.

Andrew grew up in Clearwater, the son of a real estate attorney. In high school and college, Andrew worked part-time in his father’s law office. Pursuing an interest in real estate, he earned a finance degree from University of South Florida and a master’s in real estate finance at Georgetown University, which combined two of his passions to create a rewarding career.

Andrew is steeped in the heritage of his Greek ethnicity. His mother grew up in Athens and his paternal grandfather owned a Greek bakery in Cleveland, Ohio. He enjoys working out, plays ice hockey regularly, and is an avid traveler.

“It’s definitely an engaging environment here and it’s professionally satisfying to know that my work directly affects client engagements.”

Philip Gheorghiu

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 6 Years

Philip Gheorghiu is the quintessential team player on The Plasencia Group’s roster. A graduate of the world-renowned School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, Philip came to The Plasencia Group as a summer intern in 2017. After graduating in 2018 from Cornell with a bachelor’s degree in Hotel Administration, Philip joined the staff as a full-time financial analyst, a position in which he thrived as an intern, before advancing into a director role in 2021. Easygoing, quick-witted, and industrious, Philip’s transitions from intern to analyst to director have been seamless.

As the Director of Financial Analysis, Philip specializes in creating financial models, aids in drafting proposals and offering memorandums, manages virtual data rooms, distributes due diligence materials, maintains databases, and keeps track of the day-to-day minutia surrounding TPG’s engagements. Over the past few years, he has underwritten over four hundred hotels from upper midscale to luxury chain scale segments in more than one hundred markets across the country, from premium-branded assets in urban cores to boutique, independent properties on the beach. He has experience analyzing and presenting investment opportunities on behalf of a wide range of clients from institutional, publicly traded entities to family-owned firms.

Outside the office, Philip can be found playing pickup sports, exploring new restaurants around the city, buried in a good book, or avidly cheering for Manchester United.

“The Plasencia Group conducts itself with integrity and has a reputation for doing business the right way, and my experience here has confirmed that. The team is honest in all that they do, and their client-first philosophy is extremely refreshing.”

Jackson Boucher

Tampa, Florida | Industry Tenure: 3 Years

Jackson Boucher joined The Plasencia Group in 2022 following a stint as an Investment Banking Analyst for Deutsche Bank’s Leveraged Credit Group in Jacksonville, having worked on several high-profile capital markets transactions and constructed credit models for a variety of the bank’s domestic and international clients. An Orlando-area native born to parents from St. Peterburg, Jackson earned an honors degree from Florida State University in 2020 as a Finance and Economics double major. He works closely with The Plasencia Group’s investment sales team to underwrite hotel engagements in markets across the country, prepare investment marketing materials, and coordinate transaction operations and diligence with the firm’s clients.

While away from the desk, Jackson enjoys spending time with his large extended family in the Tampa Bay area as well as exploring the region’s food and entertainment scenes, which he views as an important form of local market research. Also an avid outdoorsman, he has hiked trails and climbed mountains from Oregon to Maine to Switzerland, yet has a soft spot for the peaceful, natural beauty of Florida’s coasts and scrub forests.