UPDATED, May 19, 3:55 p.m.: Premier Equities bought the Duane Street Hotel in Tribeca for $18 million and signed short-term rental company Sonder to a lease there.
The sale of the 43-room hotel at 130 Duane Street works out to $419,000 per room, according to the Commercial Observer. Hersha plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt.
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Sonder will lease the entire hotel. The rental company recently also leased the Flatiron Hotel from Premier Equities.
Earlier this year, Sonder said it would go public by merging with a SPAC backed by billionaires Alec Gores and Dean Metropoulos. Sonder expects to reap $650 million in the offering. Francis Davidson co-founded the company in 2014 while managing several apartments in Montreal as a university student.
Earlier this year, Hersha Hospitality, led by Jay Shah, lost control of its stake in a seven-hotel Manhattan portfolio in a UCC foreclosure to lender Mack Real Estate. Hersha owned the properties — which did not include the Duane Street Hotel — in a joint venture between Hersha Hospitality Trust and the Chinese investment firm Cindat Capital Management.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Dan O’Brien and Jared Kelso brokered the deal on Monday. Robert Chattah and Aziz Kabbaj of Reshape Advisory represented Sonder in the lease.
[CO] — Keith Larsen