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South Florida

Montford, Opterra JV buys Hilton Garden Inn Miami Beach for $28M

Hotel had been owned by Baywood Hotels since 2013

Montford Group' Sunju Patel and Opterra Capital Glenn Alba with 2940 Collins Avenue (Montford Group, Getty)
Montford Group' Sunju Patel and Opterra Capital Glenn Alba with 2940 Collins Avenue (Montford Group, Getty)

UPDATED, Sept. 30, 10:35 a.m.: A joint venture bought the Hilton Garden Inn Miami Beach from Baywood Hotels for $28 million.

Montford Group and Opterra Capital, led by Sunju Patel and Glenn Alba, respectively, bought the eight-story, 96-key hotel at 2940 Collins Avenue, records show.

The price equates to $292,000 per room.

The partnership secured a $20.2 million mortgage from Georgia-based Synovus Bank to finance the deal, records show.

Baywood Hotels, led by President Al Patel, bought the property in 2013 for $12.5 million, records show. Built in 1935, the hotel sits on 0.2 acres. Baywood completed extensive renovations over a two-year period after the firm acquired the property, according to Sunju Patel and Alba.

Through their partnership, dubbed TMGOC Ventures, Montford and Opterra have invested in 14 hotels across the Southeast, primarily in South Florida and South Carolina, Sunju Patel and Alba said.

The Miami Beach purchase was the result of a conversation among friends. Sunju Patel and Alba were at drinks with Al Patel when he mentioned wanting to sell the hotel.

“We approached him to buy, and it was as simple as that,” said Sunju Patel.

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The joint venture had been eyeing the Miami market for quite a while, but the Covid surge in pricing made it a difficult market to crack — until the Hilton Garden Inn opportunity came along, he added.

“We got in at the right price,” he said.

The investors plan to expand upon the renovations Baywood completed in 2015, and intend for the hotel to remain a Hilton. Improvements to the lobby, bar, and some of the rooms are in the works, according to Alba.

Patel said the duo has been in talks with the city for three months already, mainly regarding an exterior paint job.

South Florida’s hotel market has had a busy few weeks. Wurzak Hotel Group bought the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Deerfield Beach-Boca Raton for $27 million, the group’s fourth South Florida acquisition.

A Toronto-based investment firm paid $39.3 million for the Lord Balfour hotel on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach.

Tom Assouline and members of the Busch beer family purchased the Red South Beach hotel on Collins Avenue, near the Hilton Garden Inn, for $33 million.

And Chetrit Group’s lender for its shuttered Tides South Beach hotel scored a legal victory, when a judge ruled that the developer had violated its mortgage agreement.