Sam Chang is selling the Hampton Inn at 337 West 39th Street and the Candlewood Suites at 339 West 39th Street

Hersha Hospitality Trust, a Pennsylvania real estate investment trust, plans to spend $110 million it raised as part of a public offering last week to buy two Midtown hotels developed by Sam Chang, according to an announcement from the investment company last week.

Hersha will pay $54.3 million for the purchase of the 184-room Hampton Inn at 337 West 39th Street and $55.5 million for the 188-room Candlewood Suites next door at 339 West 39th Street, documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show.

The purchase price of $110 million for the 372 rooms comes to a cost of $295,698 per room. The two hotels, as well as a third hotel, a 210-room Holiday Inn Express at 343 West 39th Street, all between Eighth and Ninth avenues, were developed by Chang’s McSam Hotel Group and opened in July 2009, and were expected to be sold together last summer to Hersha. Chang said in an interview today his company was still operating the third hotel at 343 West 39th Street, which remained available for sale. And he said he will not make money on the sale of the two hotels when they do close. “Pretty much we probably broke even. Maybe lost a little money,” he said. [more]

Sam Chang, a prominent budget hotelier, has been hit with a subpoena as part of a state attorney general’s office investigation into the construction contractor he used to build at least six of his 37 New York City hotels. The company, EMC Contracting, is alleged to have underpaid immigrant workers who were forced to work 70-hour weeks, and to have calculated their wages based on race. A civil suit filed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo this month charges that EMC paid white workers $25 per hour, while black workers were paid $18 and Latino workers got $15. The investigation began after a protest by EMC workers got out of hand at a Chang construction site in 2006. Chang, who owns properties like the Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn, and Comfort Inn, will be required to provide records, documents, and correspondence relevant to his relationship with the company, and to testify on Nov. 11. Chang told the New York Times that he knows very little about the case, and that he stopped hiring EMC for his projects after the 2006 incident, but the subpoenas show that action could be taken against him and his companies.