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New York

Madison Ave hotel asks $140M in test of NY’s hospitality recovery

NH Hotel Group lists 22 East 38th Street after $72M gut renovation

22 East 38th Street, NH Hotel Group's Ramón Aragonés (Getty, NH Hotel Group, Google Maps)
22 East 38th Street, NH Hotel Group's Ramón Aragonés (Getty, NH Hotel Group, Google Maps)

The owners of a Murray Hill hotel are about to see if a three-year, top-to-bottom renovation is enough to get in on New York’s hospitality recovery.

Spanish hotel company NH Hotel Group has put its 288-room hotel at 22 East 38th Street up for sale eyeing a price of $140 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The move is a test of NH’s investment in the 1920s-era building at the corner of Madison Avenue, coming as New York experiences a hospitality resurgence that first took hold in resort markets in the wake of the pandemic and has now moved to large cities. 

The owner closed the hotel before the onset of the pandemic and spent $72 million on a gut renovation — about half its current asking price — before reopening in 2021. 

The hotel sits a block away from Amazon’s new headquarters at the former Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue, and part of NH Hotel Group’s pitch is that their hotel will benefit from business travelers visiting the company’s headquarters.

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A spokesperson for NH Hotel Group, led by CEO Ramón Aragonés, could not be immediately reached for comment. Eastdil Secured is handling marketing for the property; a spokesperson for the brokerage declined to comment.

New York’s hotel market, which struggled for years with a flood of new supply and then the aftermath of the pandemic shutdown, is now seeing better days.

A number of hotels that shutdown in 2019 never reopened, which has helped on the supply side. And travelers have returned, helping to push room prices back up past pre-pandemic levels.

New York’s hotel occupancy was shy of 85 percent in April, according to CoStar. That was up 2.4 percent from the same time a year earlier. The average daily room rate was up 2.6 percent to just about $300, and revenue per available room was up a little more than 5 percent to more than $253.

Investors have been able to snap up properties at bargain prices, particularly as have sought to exit troubled hotels.

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