The Sofitel hotel in Midtown is being sold to an Asian real estate investor for $272 million.
A partnership composed of Accor Group, Goldman Sachs Group and GEM Realty Capital will sell the 398-room hotel at 45 West 44th Street to the Hong Kong-listed firm Keck Seng Investments, the Wall Street Journal reported. Goldman Sachs and GEM paid $255 million for a 75-percent stake in the Midtown hotel and another Sofitel property in Philadelphia in 2006, according to the newspaper.
Accor will continue to operate the hotel. Eastdil Secured was the broker for the deal, the Journal reported, though the individual agents were not specified.
In July, Keck Seng picked up the 173-room SpringHill Suites at 25 West 37th Street from Hidrock Realty for $82 million.
In 2011, a housekeeper at the Sofitel accused International Monetary Fund president Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault. [WSJ] – Tom DiChristopher