Lender Buys Harris Bay’s Riverwalk Hotel Site via Foreclosure

Harris Bay’s boutique hotel project on San Antonio’s Riverwalk has been put to rest, with its lender acquiring the downtown site via foreclosure auction.

Austin-based Equity Secured Investments has taken control of the property at 151 East Travis Street, where California-based Harris Bay planned to deliver an eight-story, 112-room Arista Hotel, the San Antonio Business Journal reported.

Equity Secured moved to foreclose on the property last month, after Harris Bay defaulted on a $2.1 million loan, much of which is still owed.

Harris Bay bought the site, valued for tax purposes at nearly $4 million, in 2019. The $19 million project went through multiple reviews by the Historic and Design Review Commission. Construction was expected to begin last summer, but high interest rates and construction costs stymied the development. It never got off the ground.

Despite a relatively strong hospitality industry, buoyed by attractions such as the River Walk, the Pearl district and The Alamo, several San Antonio hotels have struggled to stay afloat.

El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel went into foreclosure last year as a result of Alamo Equity failing to pay off its $6.34 million mezzanine loan. An Embassy Suites on San Antonio’s Northwest Side went up for sale via foreclosure last year, as well, after California-based Hotel Capital defaulted on its $43.5 million mortgage.

Harris Bay, meanwhile, has been an active investor in San Antonio. It was part of a venture leading an office-to-residential conversion of the Travis Building next to the Artista site, before DJE Texas Management Group took over the project last summer. In December, Harris Bay sold the office building at 314 East Commerce Street for an undisclosed amount, although it was listed at $5.35 million.

—Quinn Donoghue