An iconic South Beach resort that came to symbolize the region's real estate boom and bust has found a new owner -- and is now seeking a company to manage operations.
The 409-room Royal Palm Resort Hotel, which has been mired in debt and drama for the past few years, went to California-based Sunstone Hotel Investors via an online foreclosure auction. Sunstone, a real estate investment trust, submitted the $126.1 million high bid and plans a comprehensive renovation at the oceanfront hotel.
Sunstone owns 30 other hotels around the country, including the Hilton Times Square in New York and the Fairmont Newport Beach in California. The Royal Palm is its second Florida acquisition; it also owns the Marriott Renaissance in Orlando.
The Royal Palm ``fits squarely within our target criteria -- excellent real estate, well located within a perennially strong market, with significant upside potential through a full renovation and repositioning program,'' Sunstone president and CEO Art Buser said in a statement. The company has not yet chosen a manager for the Royal Palm.
The hotel at 1545 Collins Ave., which sits on nearly two acres, has gone through a string of owners and legal battles.
In the 1990s, developer R. Donahue Peebles won the deal to open the country's first majority black-owned hotel as part of Miami Beach's efforts to end a tourism boycott. The city helped finance the project, which turned into a teardown and reconstruction rather than renovation of the historic hotel. The new Royal Palm opened in 2002.
Peebles sold most of the hotel in 2005 to investors Guy Mitchell and Robert Falor, who planned a condo-hotel conversion. The conversion plan flopped, as did several other of the duo's planned projects, and the property eventually went into foreclosure.
Mitchell was indicted in May on bank fraud, bribery and conspiracy charges, though the indictment did not mention the Royal Palm.
Hotel investment services firm Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels was retained by the court-appointed receiver as the agent for the Royal Palm's foreclosure sale.
Interest in the beachfront hotel was high, and more than 60 potential buyers had toured it since May, said Gregory Rumpel, executive vice president for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.
The purchase is ``a tremendous opportunity,'' Rumpel said, but warned that renovations would ``take a lot of money and time.''
Sunstone previously bought some of the hotel's debt at a discount. The company expects renovations to take about two years to complete, it said in a release. The company did not say how much it expected to invest in renovations.
News of the Royal Palm's fate follows the sale of another distressed property on the beach earlier this summer. Marriott bought the Seville Beach Hotel in a $57.5 million short sale with plans to renovate and reopen it under the Edition brand, a partnership with celebrity hotelier Ian Schrager.
Commercial real estate attorney Jim Soble said he expected to see more hotels follow suit in the near future.
``I think there's a number of hotels that may have been purchased in the last 3-5 years and financed at numbers that don't make economic sense today,'' he said. ``It's a question as to when the the owners of the hotels or the holders of the financing of these properties make an election to put them on the market.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/18/1780534/royal-palm-sold-at-auction.html
BY HANNAH SAMPSON
hsampson@MiamiHerald.com
The Criscitos has been selling South Florida luxury and commercial real estate for over a decade and has sold over $1 billion dollars of property. They work as a multi-lingual team speaking english, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. They carved out a niche as a leading boutique real estate company with two distinct divisions -residential and commercial- both personally overseeing by Marcela and Anthony Criscito.
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Miami Beach's Seville Hotel gets a rebirth
Ian Schrager, the celebrity hotelier who invigorated South Beach with his launch of the Delano hotel 15 years ago, is coming back to the beach.
Through a partnership with Marriott, Schrager is set to turn the shuttered 12-story Seville Beach Hotel into a boutique property under the new Edition brand.
The new venture, confirmed Thursday by Marriott, is just the second announced U.S. location under the new brand. The first is scheduled to open this fall in Honolulu.
Marriott spokesman John Wolf said the South Florida hotel, which sits on nearly three acres of beachfront property at 2901 Collins Ave., is expected to open in three years after significant renovations.
``Edition has tremendous growth potential and this hotel will be a flagship to showcase the brand,'' said Marriott International CFO Carl Berquist in a conference call with investors.
Thursday's announcement adds a new whiff of hip to the Beach scene, still basking in the glow of basketball star LeBron James' decision last week to call the area home. And it comes at a time when few comparable projects are on the horizon.
Schrager left Miami Beach a few years ago with the sale of his interest in the Morgans Hotel Group.
In recent years, Schrager has focused on luxury residences and a hotel in New York City and on the creating the Edition brand, aimed at sophisticated travelers.
His return to the beach is being heralded as a renewal after a tough patch for South Beach hotels, with several high-profile properties stressed by the economy.
``The Delano has the vibe or whatever . . . and Schrager was the marketing genius behind it,'' said Scott Brush, an independent hotel consultant based in Miami-Dade. ``With him involved with this, I don't think there's any way that it won't be successful.''
Some of Miami Beach's hottest hotels, the W and the Gansevoort, are several blocks south of the Seville; the Fontainebleau Resort lies 15 blocks north. The action between is subdued.
``For locals, this was an area that you avoided,'' said Peter Zalewski, a principal at real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. ``Or if you drove through it, you went really fast.''
He wondered how easy it would be to translate a massive older resort into ``boutique chicness,'' but called Marriott a pioneer for moving into the area.
``This is a tremendous economic boost,'' he said. ``It's going to fill in the gap between south of Fifth and the Fontainebleau. This is the piece that's necessary to bridge.''
The 278,547-square-foot Seville, built in 1955, previously attempted a comeback. In 2005, developers announced plans to turn it into a condo and fractional ownership complex with the Ritz-Carlton name, despite three Ritz-Carlton properties already in the area. Marriott owns the Ritz-Carlton brand.
Part of the old property would have been knocked down to make room for two 21-story towers, but the project couldn't get off the ground as lenders balked in an unfriendly credit market.
Marriott acquired the property recently in a $57.5 million short sale from owner 2901 Beach Ventures, a partnership between Lionstone Group -- led by Alfredo Lowenstein -- and Fortune International Management, records show. That's nearly $10 million less than a foreclosure lawsuit that had been filed on the property, which has since been dismissed.
Marriott does not expect to be the property's long-term owner, Berquist said Thursday in a conference call for investors.
Marriott owns few properties that bear its name, instead franchising or managing hotels for owners under long-term contracts.
Marriott's portfolio includes the luxury brand Ritz-Carlton, the upscale JW Marriott, ``quality'' brands including Marriott and Renaissance and moderate hotels Courtyard by Marriott and Fairfield Inn by Marriott. In addition to Edition, it also recently created the Autograph Collection, currently featuring 10 hotels with an individualistic ambience.
Edition seeks to set itself apart by creating individualized hotels in busy markets that reflect the cultures of their surroundings with an emphasis on sophistication and service. Other planned Edition locations include Mexico City, Bangkok, Istanbul and Barcelona.
Schrager and Marriott announced the partnership three years ago. Initially, plans called for the South Beach Marriott at 161 Ocean Dr. to become an Edition, but that failed to materialize as the recession hit.
``We continue to explore other opportunities in the market, including the South Beach Marriott, but that project has been delayed due to market and other conditions,'' Marriott spokesman John Wolf said.
Brush said he expects success from the hotel once it opens in a few years.
``It'll be well into an economic recovery and there is very little opportunity for additional supply out on the beach,'' he said.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/16/1732723/under-ian-schragers-direction.html
BY HANNAH SAMPSON
hsampson@MiamiHerald.com
Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.
Through a partnership with Marriott, Schrager is set to turn the shuttered 12-story Seville Beach Hotel into a boutique property under the new Edition brand.
The new venture, confirmed Thursday by Marriott, is just the second announced U.S. location under the new brand. The first is scheduled to open this fall in Honolulu.
Marriott spokesman John Wolf said the South Florida hotel, which sits on nearly three acres of beachfront property at 2901 Collins Ave., is expected to open in three years after significant renovations.
``Edition has tremendous growth potential and this hotel will be a flagship to showcase the brand,'' said Marriott International CFO Carl Berquist in a conference call with investors.
Thursday's announcement adds a new whiff of hip to the Beach scene, still basking in the glow of basketball star LeBron James' decision last week to call the area home. And it comes at a time when few comparable projects are on the horizon.
Schrager left Miami Beach a few years ago with the sale of his interest in the Morgans Hotel Group.
In recent years, Schrager has focused on luxury residences and a hotel in New York City and on the creating the Edition brand, aimed at sophisticated travelers.
His return to the beach is being heralded as a renewal after a tough patch for South Beach hotels, with several high-profile properties stressed by the economy.
``The Delano has the vibe or whatever . . . and Schrager was the marketing genius behind it,'' said Scott Brush, an independent hotel consultant based in Miami-Dade. ``With him involved with this, I don't think there's any way that it won't be successful.''
Some of Miami Beach's hottest hotels, the W and the Gansevoort, are several blocks south of the Seville; the Fontainebleau Resort lies 15 blocks north. The action between is subdued.
``For locals, this was an area that you avoided,'' said Peter Zalewski, a principal at real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. ``Or if you drove through it, you went really fast.''
He wondered how easy it would be to translate a massive older resort into ``boutique chicness,'' but called Marriott a pioneer for moving into the area.
``This is a tremendous economic boost,'' he said. ``It's going to fill in the gap between south of Fifth and the Fontainebleau. This is the piece that's necessary to bridge.''
The 278,547-square-foot Seville, built in 1955, previously attempted a comeback. In 2005, developers announced plans to turn it into a condo and fractional ownership complex with the Ritz-Carlton name, despite three Ritz-Carlton properties already in the area. Marriott owns the Ritz-Carlton brand.
Part of the old property would have been knocked down to make room for two 21-story towers, but the project couldn't get off the ground as lenders balked in an unfriendly credit market.
Marriott acquired the property recently in a $57.5 million short sale from owner 2901 Beach Ventures, a partnership between Lionstone Group -- led by Alfredo Lowenstein -- and Fortune International Management, records show. That's nearly $10 million less than a foreclosure lawsuit that had been filed on the property, which has since been dismissed.
Marriott does not expect to be the property's long-term owner, Berquist said Thursday in a conference call for investors.
Marriott owns few properties that bear its name, instead franchising or managing hotels for owners under long-term contracts.
Marriott's portfolio includes the luxury brand Ritz-Carlton, the upscale JW Marriott, ``quality'' brands including Marriott and Renaissance and moderate hotels Courtyard by Marriott and Fairfield Inn by Marriott. In addition to Edition, it also recently created the Autograph Collection, currently featuring 10 hotels with an individualistic ambience.
Edition seeks to set itself apart by creating individualized hotels in busy markets that reflect the cultures of their surroundings with an emphasis on sophistication and service. Other planned Edition locations include Mexico City, Bangkok, Istanbul and Barcelona.
Schrager and Marriott announced the partnership three years ago. Initially, plans called for the South Beach Marriott at 161 Ocean Dr. to become an Edition, but that failed to materialize as the recession hit.
``We continue to explore other opportunities in the market, including the South Beach Marriott, but that project has been delayed due to market and other conditions,'' Marriott spokesman John Wolf said.
Brush said he expects success from the hotel once it opens in a few years.
``It'll be well into an economic recovery and there is very little opportunity for additional supply out on the beach,'' he said.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/16/1732723/under-ian-schragers-direction.html
BY HANNAH SAMPSON
hsampson@MiamiHerald.com
Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sales pick up at Miami's Canyon Ranch
Canyon Ranch Living, a luxury wellness hotel and condo development in Miami that has been heavily targeting New York City buyers, sold 49 condo units in the first quarter of the year, spurring optimism that the 1-million-square-foot property is catching on with buyers, according to Mel Zuckerman, the founder and chairman of Canyon Ranch. The complex contains 430 condo units and 150 hotel rooms, as well as a 70,000-square-foot spa. An affiliate company of Lehman Brothers Holdings took ownership of the property in November 2009 for $291 million. So far, 88 units have sold.
Source: http://therealdeal.com/miami/articles/sales-pick-up-at-wellness-residential-complex-in-miami-canyon-ranch
Source: http://therealdeal.com/miami/articles/sales-pick-up-at-wellness-residential-complex-in-miami-canyon-ranch
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