Concord Hospitality Buys Cambria Chelsea Hotel for $48M

Concord Hospitality appears to be taking over ownership of a Manhattan hotel the firm has managed for the last eight years.

An entity connected to the Raleigh-based hotel management and development company acquired the Cambria Chelsea hotel at 123 West 28th Street for $48.4 million from Robert Chun’s We Care Trading Co. Ltd, according to property records filed Thursday.

Concord financed the acquisition with a $32.5 million loan from Western Alliance Bank. PincusCo was first to report on the transaction.

The property was last sold in 1994 for an undisclosed amount. Concord did not respond to a request for comment.

Choice Hotels International broke ground on the 135-key Cambria Chelsea in 2012, and the 18-floor hotel opened three years later. Concord operated the hotel, but the 55,400-square-foot property was owned by Chun’s We Care Trading Co. Ltd.

Concord has been an active player in Manhattan’s hotel market in recent years. The company sold the 21-floor, 196-key, 126,000-square-foot Cambria Times Square hotel at 30 West 46th Street in 2021 for $89 million after buying the parcel in 2013 for $30 million.

Concord acquired the Courtyard Marriott hotel at 100 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan in 2021 for $69 million from Sam Chang’s McSam Hotel Group.

The firm’s North American hotel and hospitality portfolio also includes the AC Hotel at 151 Maiden Lane in the Financial District, as well as several properties across South Florida and Texas.

Concord’s acquisition comes as Manhattan’s hotel market, beleaguered over the past three years by the pandemic, appears to be showing some signs of recovery.

New York City saw $2.05 billion in hotel deal volume last year, its highest since the onset of the pandemic, according to JLL Research. However, that metric is still far below pre-pandemic levels of $2.69 billion in 2018 and $2.59 billion in 2019.

Revenue per available room increased 54 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, pushing past pre-pandemic levels for the first time in the second half of last year as daily room rates rose and both tourism and business travel picked up, according to PWC’s Manhattan lodging index. The trend was consistent across both large chain and boutique hotels, as well as full and limited-service properties.