Downtown Oakland’s only full-service hotel hits market

The Oakland Marriott City Center, the only full-service hotel in the East Bay city’s downtown and a landmark in its central business district, is for sale.

Real estate investment firm Eastdil Secured is marketing the 500-room hotel at 1001 Broadway on behalf of owner Gaw Capital, the Mercury News said. Eastdil’s marketing package for the 21-story building doesn’t list an asking price, according to the newspaper.

The property is directly connected to the Oakland Convention Center and is a block away from a BART station. It’s near a cluster of tech companies in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood, Jack London Square, numerous restaurants and two historic theaters, according to Eastdil. It also can accommodate extended-stay guests or large groups that the smaller hotels nearby can’t take on because they’re too small, its marketing package says.

Hong Kong’s Gaw acquired the hotel in 2017 for $143 million, or about $289,000 a key, about a year after its previous owners finished redesigning all its guest rooms as part of a $22 million renovation. The project added a new bar and restaurant on the second floor as well as a concierge lounge. It’s unclear why Gaw decided to list the property or when Eastdil presented it to the market.

A record 498 hotels changed hands in California last year, the Mercury News said. No more than 400 sold annually before that year, Atlas Hospitality Group’s Alan Reay told the newspaper.

“It’s a great time to be selling a hotel,” Reay said. “There is tremendous buyer interest in California hotels.”

While the $9.5 billion investors paid last year to buy such properties didn’t set a high-water mark, it was an almost threefold increase from the $3.2 billion spent on California hotels in 2020, according to Atlas Hospitality data.

[The Mercury News] — Matthew Niksa

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