Chicago
Hotelier Ian Schrager last month opened the new Public Chicago hotel at 1301 North State Parkway. The 285-room hotel, formerly home to the Ambassador East, is the first in Schrager’s new line of mid-range properties aimed at cost-conscious guests, Bloomberg News reported. Schrager bought the property, in the city’s Gold Coast section, for about $25 million and spent roughly the same amount to renovate the hotel and its famous restaurant, the Pump Room. “The building had great bones,” Schrager told Bloomberg. “It’s an iconic landmark. It might be Chicago’s Plaza Hotel.” Room rates start at $135 a night, and Schrager said he expects Public hotels to attract guests who would normally stay in a Courtyard by Marriott or Hilton Garden Inn. Last month, Schrager won a 76 million-pound ($119 million) bid for a Crowne Plaza hotel in London that likely will be the next Public location. Occupancy for all hotels in Chicago climbed to 64 percent from January through August, up from 62 percent a year earlier, according to Bloomberg, and the average daily room rate rose 5.3 percent to $114.20.
San Francisco
Real estate developer Maher Muhawieh pleaded guilty last month to defrauding 80 investors out of $25 million between January 2006 and March 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Muhawieh told investors he would use their money to purchase and renovate local properties, and allegedly used it for personal expenses instead. The Chronicle said Muhawieh convinced lenders of his legitimacy by securing their loans with real estate trust deeds that were actually worthless, because multiple lenders were given deeds to the same property. Due to be sentenced in March, Muhawieh could face up to 10 years in prison plus a fine of up to twice the amount of the fraud. Muhawieh also pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud relating to a $62,500 transaction in 2006.
Los Angeles
Former “Friends” actor Matthew Perry has listed his four-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom Malibu mansion for sale for $13.5 million, the L.A. Times reported. With a home theater, media room and pool, the house has 3,677 square feet of living space and is listed by Greg Holcomb and Mark Rutstein of Partners Trust in Beverly Hills. Public records show that Perry bought the property in 2005 for $6.55 million. Perry, famous for his role as Chandler Bing on the popular ’90s sitcom, purchased a Sunset Strip home for $8.65 million earlier this year.
UBS Realty Investors paid 3D Investments roughly $45 million to buy the 21-story, 434-room Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens in L.A.’s Little Tokyo, according to the Times. The Kyoto Grand, built in 1977 and formerly known as the New Otani Hotel & Garden, has long been a destination for Japanese tourists. UBS is expected to rebrand the 21-story property as a DoubleTree hotel. Newport Beach-based Rim Hospitalities, manager of the Marriott Los Angeles and the Sheraton Los Angeles, is slated to take over operations at the hotel, the Times said.
Washington, D.C.
The Lehman Brothers estate filed a lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages from a Goldman Sachs Group fund, the Wall Street Journal reported, alleging that it walked away from a $1.26 billion deal two days before it was set to close. Lehman had been set to sell the fund its 78.5 percent equity stake in 10 office buildings in a suburb of Washington, as part of a massive ongoing effort to monetize its real estate assets and raise money to pay back creditors after filing for bankruptcy in 2008. In papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan last month, lawyers for Lehman said Goldman’s “unilateral and groundless termination of the agreement was wrongful,” since it violated Lehman’s contractual right to extend the deal’s deadline. Lehman also called the fund’s move “a blatant attempt to avoid its contractual obligations.”
Seattle
Looking to gain a presence in Oregon and a larger market share in the Pacific Northwest, Jones Lang LaSalle has purchased Pacific Real Estate Partners, a commercial real estate brokerage based in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. Elizabeth Hearle, Northwest market director for Jones Lang LaSalle, declined to confirm the purchase price, but sources said it was around $8 million. PREP, which has 49 employees, will retain its offices in Bellevue, Tacoma and Portland, the Journal said, but its Seattle office employees will relocate to Jones Lang LaSalle’s Seattle offices at 601 Union Street. The deal has been in the works for some time, Hearle said. “It took time for us to get to know each other at the highest level and in the field,” she said. “We think this is a very solid investment to make.” Jones Lang LaSalle has operated in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has some 400 agents in the region, the company said.
Denver
Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises Investors last month purchased the 231,454-square-foot Denver Club office building on behalf of a pension-fund client, GlobeSt.com reported. The 24-story historic building is located at 518 17th Street in the city’s Central Business District. It recently underwent a massive $10 million renovation, with upgrades to its lobby, elevators and mechanical systems, and will receive $1.5 million in additional improvements under its new ownership. Kerri O’Neill, senior vice president of LEI, called the building “a landmark asset in a prime location,” adding that it “should benefit greatly from the continuing recovery of the Denver market.” The Denver Club is currently 76 percent leased.
Compiled by Katherine Clarke