Hotel at Times Square heads to auction

Premier Hotels paid $60M for property at 59 West 46th Street

Another distressed Times Square hotel is headed to the auction block.

Paramdeep Singh’s property at 59 West 46th Street will be auctioned off at the beginning of March, Crain’s reported. The shuttered Hotel at Times Square defaulted on a $4 million mortgage.

Premier Hotels has owned the 213-key property for less than a year, after purchasing it from Apple Core Holdings in February for $59.5 million. At the time of sale, Apple Core had already defaulted on loan payments to its lender.

The deal was one of the most expensive hotel sales of the year.

Singh’s acquisition was financed with $37.4 million from Benefit Street Partners, which originated $4.8 million in construction and gap loans. Benefit Street also assumed the remaining debt from CMBS investors following Apple Core’s delinquency.

The Hotel at Times Square is not open to the public and currently being used as a migrant shelter. It’s not clear how the auction process will effect the those in shelter at the hotel.

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Singh’s luck with Times Square hotels is rotten, with another shuttered property at 46 Times Square; Singh purchased that from Apple Core in 2019 for $24 million.

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The distress at the Hotel at Times Square comes after recent trouble for another hospitality property in the area, 20 Times Square. In November, a $900 million loan on the Maefield Development property was transferred to special servicing. The borrower defaulted after $26.8 million in liens were filed against the property. Natixis’ 2018 loan is set to mature in May.

That property aso went through the auction process. The lender took control of the 350,000-square-foot property at auction last year.

Meanwhile, the owners of the Crowne Plaza Times Square Hotel filed for bankruptcy last month, shortly after reopening the property.

Andrew Penson’s Argent Ventures is hoping to reorganize the finances of 1601 Broadway after gaining control of the 46-story tower. The hotel, which occupies floors 15 to 46 of the property, closed due to Covid in March 2020 and didn’t reopen until two months ago.

— Holden Walter-Warner