Premier Equities buys Tribeca hotel, inks Sonder to lease

Duane Street Hotel was purchased from Hersha Hospitality Trust

Sonder CEO Francis Davidson and 130 Duane Street (Sonder, Google Maps)
Sonder CEO Francis Davidson and 130 Duane Street (Sonder, Google Maps)

UPDATED, May 19, 3:55 p.m.: Premier Equities bought the Duane Street Hotel in Tribeca for $18 million and signed short-term rental company Sonder to a lease there.

The sale of the 43-room hotel at 130 Duane Street works out to $419,000 per room, according to the Commercial Observer. Hersha plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt.

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Sonder will lease the entire hotel. The rental company recently also leased the Flatiron Hotel from Premier Equities.

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Earlier this year, Sonder said it would go public by merging with a SPAC backed by billionaires Alec Gores and Dean Metropoulos. Sonder expects to reap $650 million in the offering. Francis Davidson co-founded the company in 2014 while managing several apartments in Montreal as a university student.

Earlier this year, Hersha Hospitality, led by Jay Shah, lost control of its stake in a seven-hotel Manhattan portfolio in a UCC foreclosure to lender Mack Real Estate. Hersha owned the properties — which did not include the Duane Street Hotel — in a joint venture between Hersha Hospitality Trust and the Chinese investment firm Cindat Capital Management.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Dan O’Brien and Jared Kelso brokered the deal on Monday. Robert Chattah and Aziz Kabbaj of Reshape Advisory represented Sonder in the lease.

[CO] — Keith Larsen