Sam Chang adds LIC hotel to string of sales

Sam Chang can’t stop taking a buzzsaw to his hotel empire.

The McSam Hotel Group sold a 142-key property at 38-04 11th Street in Long Island City for $40 million, according to the Commercial Observer. A limited liability company connected to Letap Group principal Jasmin Patel purchased the newly built Queens hotel.

The sale was first reported by PincusCo.

Chang closed on the site in 2017 for $7.8 million. Greenwich Street Equities‘ Alec Shtromandel sold the site, which already had approved plans and a foundation in place.

In 2018, Madison Realty Capital provided a $16.5 million construction and acquisition loan to Chang. The McSam chair agreed to a contract to sell the property to Letap back in 2022. It’s not clear who brokered the sale or why it took as long as it did to close.

Chang adopted the seller’s mentality several years ago and has been selling his properties ever since, though not exclusively; last year he scored a $35 million loan from the State Bank of Texas for a hotel at 223 West 46th Street in Times Square. Chang’s vowed to retire from the hotel business after New York City passed laws stifling new hotel development.

Late last year, he sold three hotels along Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan for more than $200 million combined. Earlier in the year, he sold a trio of Hilton-branded hotels to Magna Hospitality Group for $160 million. Additional recent sales include the $76.5 million sale of a Long Island City hotel to Bayrock Capital last May and the $147 million sale of a 531-key property in West Chelsea to Phoenix Hospitality in 2020.

Letap’s other hotel endeavors in New York City include developing the Best Western Premier Herald Square and purchasing another Long Island City hotel for $17 million last year.

— Holden Walter-Warner