An investment group that includes real estate heavyweights like Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group is offloading a pair of hospitality assets in downtown Nashville.
Host Hotels & Resorts is poised to acquire the 1 Hotel Nashville and the adjacent Embassy Suites for $500 million, Bloomberg reported. That price would be more than $693,000 per key and the most-expensive hotel sale in Nashville since 2022.
The ownership group comprises Miami-based Starwood, and two Texas-based titans, Crescent Real Estate and High Street Real Estate Partners. They embarked on the development of the two hotels in 2019. A Starwood affiliate bought the site, at 708 and 710 Demonbreun, for $20 million in 2019.
The 1 Hotel Nashville, rising 18 stories, has 215 keys and has been a prominent fixture since its opening in 2022. The 30-story Embassy Suites by Hilton Nashville Downtown has 506 keys and is the largest Embassy Suites property in the United States.
Xenia Hotels & Resorts set a record in March 2022, when it bought the W Nashville Hotel in the Gulch for $328.7 million, or $950,000 per key.
Hotel sales hit a peak in Nashville that year, averaging $38.2 million per transaction, according to CoStar.
Last year’s transactions averaged $21.1 million, but there were several landmark deals. Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment paid $82.6 million, almost $492,000 per key, for downtown’s 168-room Dream Hotel last summer.
New York City-based Dreamscape Companies bought the historic Holston House hotel for $60 million, almost $315,000 per key, late last year. And Atlanta-based Noble Investment Group paid nearly $82 million, about $404,000 per key, for downtown’s Holiday Inn Express.
Plus, country music legend Dolly Parton acquired the 211 Commerce office building, with plans to convert the downtown property into a hotel.