Rockpoint, Highgate to sell Times Square hotel in three pieces worth $650M

The owners of Times Square’s Milford Plaza Hotel are thinking about chopping up the property into three pieces and selling them separately for a heftier profit, according to the Wall Street Journal. Real estate investment group Rockpoint and Highgate Hotels would like to see separate sales from the Eighth Avenue site — the land, the 1,300-room hotel and the retail space, the newspaper reported.

Sources close to the negotiations told the Journal that combined value of the sales could be equal to roughly $650 million — more than three times the nearly $200 million that the owners paid in 2010.

Rockpoint and Highgate could close the sale of the land as early as this week. Sources have identified real-estate investor David Werner and a partner as the potential buyer. The hotel could go to New York real estate firm Ashkenazy Acquisition, but that deal is further away from closing. Eastdil Secured brokers Adam Spies and Douglas Harmon are running the sales.

While the owners did make significant capital improvements to the property, the massive price growth reflects a spike in demand for hotels in popular tourist areas, according to the Journal. [WSJ] —Christopher Cameron