Brookfield under contract to buy PGA National Resort & Spa for $255M: report

Brookfield Asset Management is under contract to buy the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens for $255 million, the Palm Beach Post reported.

If the sale goes through, Brookfield would pay $85 million more than what PGA National’s current owner, Walton Street Capital, paid for the property in 2006. The $255 million sale price, reported by OpenComps, would equate to about $752,000 per hotel room. OpenComps tracks commercial real estate sales.

Walton Street Capital put the property on the market earlier this year with Hodges Ward Elliott of Atlanta.  Walton Street bought the resort in 2006 for $170 million from developer E. Llwyd Ecclestone Jr.
It features 339 hotel rooms, a 40,000-square-foot spa, 42,000 square feet of meeting space and five 18-hole golf courses, and is also home to the Honda Classic Golf Tournament.

In April, PGA National announced it would close its Champion course for four months over the summer to renovate all 18 of its greens. The course is expected to reopen in about a month.

Brookfield is a Toronto-based global asset manager with more than $285 billion in assets under management. In August, the firm secured an option to buy the land under 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City from Kushner Companies as part of a deal to lease the office tower for 99 years. That same month, Brookfield Property Partners completed a $15 billion acquisition of Chicago-based GGP.

Brookfield has also been active in South Florida. In June, it purchased the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina for $170.6 million from the Blackstone Group. It also owns the Diplomat Resort & Spa Hollywood. [Palm Beach Post] – Keith Larsen