RLJ Development Buys NYC Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel
Wall Street Journal reports: The upscale Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel is the third hotel Robert L Johnson's RLJ Development has bought in Manhattan since 2008. He also purchased the Hilton Garden Inn at 63 W. 35th St. and the Fashion 26 Hotel at 152 W 26th St for more than $100 million each. Mr Johnson is founder of the BET network.
The transaction closed in late December, and amounts to a sizable gain for the hotel's sellers, Highgate Holdings, Goldman Sachs Group's Whitehall Real Estate Funds and Rockwood Capital. The Whitehall-led group bought the 755-room hotel in 2003 for $110.5 million, according to Real Capital Analytics (RCA), and spent $35 million renovating it.
The hotel, established in 1961, drew widespread attention for architect Morris Lapidus' design with its undulating glass facade evoking a vertical wave. New York's Tisch family of Loews Hotels renamed the building in 1991 as the Loews New York Hotel.
The price that RLJ paid fits within the range of recent hotel deals in Manhattan. The per-room-price of $443,700 tops Manhattan's average price - $424,150 - for the 12 months ended in September, according to RCA.
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Posted by: Matthew Stone