Earlier this week, the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp requested proposals for a full-service hotel near Yankee Stadium, but according to the Wall Street Journal, that’s a dicey proposition.
Lending is already tight in the current market. But considering the risk of building a full-service, amenity-rich hotel in the Bronx, financing may be next to impossible to obtain for such a project.
Though new hotels have been sprouting in Brooklyn and Queens, the Bronx is different. Comments
From the August issue: During the boom, when no Manhattan neighborhood seemed vulnerable to the economy, hotel deals seemed to pop up on every corner of Manhattan — no matter how far-flung.
Now, though, as the market recovers, deal-making in Manhattan’s chief central business district — Midtown — has seen more hotel activity, and larger deals, than any other part of Manhattan, sources say.
The area — which stretches from 34th to 65th streets and river to river — has seen “a number of high-dollar-amount deals,” said John Fox, a hotel industry specialist at PKF Consulting.
A handful of these Midtown deals involve ground-up construction of new hotels, though most involve investors and developers snapping up older properties, including brands like the Algonquin and the Paramount, with the intention of renovating them.
Midtown’s hot streak has been partly fueled by hotel-focused real estate investment trusts. [more]
German bank WestLB AG is marketing a $342 million portfolio of loans backed by hotels and resorts that include the Ace Hotel in Manhattan and a beach resort in Miami, according to the Wall Street Journal. The portfolio might attract bids of 60 to 70 cents on the dollar, experts said. Jones Lang LaSalle is managing the sale.
“The mix of hotels may make it harder to find one buyer who wants the whole portfolio,” said Tom McConnell, senior managing director of global hospitality at Cushman & Wakefield.
WestLB, like a number of European banks, lent aggressively to U.S. developers during the property bubble, but, unlike others, it provided financing even for more speculative resort projects. The bank is owned by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and regional savings banks. [more]
Hospitality giant Hilton is looking at several locations in Manhattan where it would open its first Homewood Suites hotel, which is part of its extended-stay concept, company executive Thomas Lorenzo told The Real Deal.
The move is made in response to other hoteliers expanding in the market, such as Marriott International which has a long-established Residence Inn by Marriott in Midtown at 1033 Sixth Avenue but is slated to open another at the now under development 1717 Broadway at 54th Street, Lorenzo said.
“We want to get one approved [by Hilton] this year,” Lorenzo told The Real Deal in Las Vegas last week at the annual global retail real estate show RECon, hosted by the International Council on Shopping Centers. [more]
Host Hotels & Resorts said today that it closed on the $313.5 million sale of the New
York Helmsley Hotel, which will be reflagged under the Westin Hotels & Resorts brand
in mid-2012 after an extensive renovation. Host Hotels, based in Bethesda, Md., said it will renovate the hotel, at 212 East 42nd
Street, with a complete overhaul of its 775 guest rooms as well as a meeting
space upgrade. [more]
From the February issue: A year and a half ago, the New York City hotel industry was hurting badly, as tourists cut back on spending and business travelers stopped calling to book rooms.
But times have changed. Indeed, the industry, while not back to where it was at the market’s peak, has done a 180 and is now rebounding stronger and faster than most had expected.
This month, The Real Deal talked to hotel experts not only about the key metrics for evaluating hotel performance, but also about development, hotel sales and a host of other crucial industry markers. [more]
Midtown’s Paramount Hotel is set to hit the auction block, according to Crain’s. The hotel, located 235 West 46th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues, is currently owned by Walton Street Capital and Highgate Holdings, the latter of which is expected to retain a stake in the building. The 597-room hotel is expected to draw numerous bidders. Although it was not immediately clear how much the hotel is expected to net at auction, hotel investors are increasingly interested in the New York City market, according to John Fox, a senior vice president at PKF Consulting. [more]
The unexpectedly fast recovery in the Manhattan hotel market has spurred developers such as Sam Chang and Hidrock Realty to dust off once-stalled projects or start new ones as room rates and occupancy levels have grown over the last year.
“We are seeing renewed interest in projects that have been stalled,” hotel consultant John Fox, a senior vice president at Colliers PKF Consulting, said. “Despite significant additions to the supply of rooms over the past few years, occupancies are at levels approximating those before the declines that started in September of 2008.” [more]
From the October issue: Keeping heads in beds has not been easy for New York City’s hotel
industry in this economy. Not only are tourists cutting back on
expenses, but companies — including those that not too long ago
readily put up their employees at five-star hotels — are also
massively scaling back.
In this month’s Q & A, hotel experts and operators talked to The Real Deal about why the hospitality industry has fallen further here than it has nationally.
They said revenue per room, or RevPAR, is down between 20 and 30
percent and that the luxury hotel market (not surprisingly) is getting
crushed hardest.
