Leon Charney and the hotel site at 120 West 41st Street

Billionaire Leon Charney, has sold a development site at 120 West 41st Street to Stanford Hotels, a source close to the deal told The Real Deal.

Stanford, which operates Hilton, Marriott and Sheraton hotels all over the country, paid $19.5 million for the property in a deal that closed late Thursday, the source said. The company is said to be planning a 125-room hotel on the site, assembling air rights from a nearby theater. The acquisition is Stanford’s first foray into the New York market.

Charney, a real estate developer who was once President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy adviser, had been planning a 22-story, $90 million boutique hotel at the site under an agreement with Minnesota-based Graves Hospitality. [more]

Jay Shah, CEO of Hersha Hospitality, and the Courtyard Miami Beach Oceanfront hotel

Hersha Hospitality Trust is buying the Courtyard Miami Beach Oceanfront hotel for $95 million. “With minimal new supply, multiple transient demand generators and the continued strength of international travel, we anticipate strong growth for this hotel and this market for the foreseeable future,” said Hersha CEO Jay Shah. The 263-unit hotel is the company’s first purchase in the city, and the only remaining Marriott hotel in Miami Beach.

As The Real Deal previously reported, Hersha has been beefing up its New York assets, too, ramping up the company’s focus on New York City hotels. [more]

An entity owned by Joseph Moinian and partners has conveyed its interests in the land at 237 West 54th Street, a vacant Midtown lot for which Moinian has filed plans for a hotel, into a new joint venture, Moinian told the New York Post in a statement. The new, controlling members of the venture have provided financing and expertise in the development and operation of hotels, he said.

“For the time being, for competitive reasons, they wish to remain anonymous,” Moinian said.  [more]

1717 Broadway

The stretch of Broadway from Columbus Circle to Times Square is one of the most ill-favored in the entire course of that illustrious avenue, which extends over the whole length of the island of Manhattan and beyond. It developed some fairly distinguished buildings in the first third of the 20th Century, like the Brill Building, famed for its songwriters, which rose in 1931. Then there are the mostly undistinguished and far taller additions of more recent years, like the Random House Tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at 1745 Broadway and completed in 2003. And in between there were and remain a few shabby, two-story structures that do nothing for the neighborhood. Fortunately, the one such structure that used to inhabit 1717 Broadway, at the northwest corner of 54th Street, has been razed, and in its stead a new 752-foot Marriott is scheduled to rise, designed by Nobutaka Ashihara and developed by the hotel chain together with Granite Broadway Development. [more]

Last week, the Post broke the news that Matilda the Cat might be getting yet another new landlord at the Algonquin, and now, public records show that the sale is official. According to a deed filed with the city this morning, the landmarked, 59 West 44th Street hotel has sold for the fifth time in 15 years, this go-around, to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, a MassMutual-owned investment group that paid $76 million for the 174-room property, which completed a renovation last summer. Aside from its feline mascot, the Algonquin is perhaps best known for the Round Table writers’ meetings that Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood once attended there daily. [more]

Joseph Moinian’s latest West Side hotel project hasn’t even gotten off the ground yet, but it’s already unpopular with its neighbors. According to the Post, union members from Local 79 have set up one of their infamous giant inflatable rats in front of the 237 West 54th Street site where Moinian has begun demolition work in preparation for the 34-story, Gene Kaufman-designed project. Apparently Moinian is using non-union workers to take down the existing, five-story structure after receiving approval from the city’s Department of Buildings last month, and sources said workers at Harry Gross’ next-door development site were angered when they got wind of it. [more]

Joseph Moinian is barely hanging onto several of his existing properties, but the Iranian-born developer is still gearing up to build in New York. According to the Post, Moinian has filed plans with the Department of Buildings to tear down the vacant, five-story building at 237 West 54th Street and put a 34-story Gene Kaufman-designed hotel in its place — right next door to a 67-story Marriott Hotel planned by Harry Gross’ Broadway Granite Development. Moinian’s demolition application has already been approved, though the DOB is still reviewing the hotel plans. A representative for Moinian said the site is in “very preliminary” stages, and that the only work being done there so far is cleanup. [more]

Leona Helmsley and New York Helmsley HotelHost Hotels & Resorts, the real estate investment trust that owns the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, the St. Regis in Houston and 102 other luxury properties, has struck a deal to buy the New York Helmsley Hotel for between $310 million and $315 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, which works out to at least $401,000 per room, is the latest in a slow-moving liquidation process of the estate of Leona Helmsley, who died in 2007. [more]

The Marriott Central Park, a 716-foot, 634-room hotel planned for Broadway and 54th Street, is in line to become New York City’s tallest hotel, the Observer reported. Though the Mandarin Oriental inside the Time Warner Center is technically taller, it’s not only a hotel, but a mixed-use project with apartments, offices and a mall. The new Marriott is comprised of a 30-story Marriott Residence Inn set atop a 24-story Marriott Courtyard built over a 20,000-square-foot retail pedestal. At the very top of the building is a three-story circular restaurant. [more]

From left: CBRE’s Ron Danko and two hotels in the deal: a Branchburg Residence Inn and a Long Island Spring Hill Suites

[Updated 12:39 p.m.] MCR Development has acquired a portfolio of 10 Marriott and Hilton hotels for $164 million, marking one of the largest hotel deals in the country so far this year, according to commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis, which brokered the deal. The collection of mostly extended-stay hotels includes 1,100 rooms across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

The seller, developer Briad Group, held onto the portfolio longer than it intended, according to CBRE broker Ron Danko, who was involved in the deal. Briad, who built the hotels between 2007 and 2010, chose to ride out the recession before unloading the properties. [more]