By Hadassa Kalatizadeh
The Marriot Hotel in LaGuardia Airport in NYC was sold for $104 million to a private-equity firm from California.
As reported by Crain’s NY, the new owner, ASAP Holdings, had purchased the hotel about a month ago, but had refused to specify the purchase price, saying only that it fell in the range of $100 million to $200 million. On Friday, published property records revealed that the firm paid $86.5 for the hotel at 102-05 Ditmars Blvd, and another $17 million for an adjacent vacant lot. The hotel boasts over 13,000 square feet of space, including 19 adaptable event spaces. “This transaction represents the largest per-room trade in a NYC submarket in the past 12 months,” said K.C. Patel, Executive Vice President of JLL, which helped broker the sale.
The seller was Rubicon Holdings, a firm which focuses on reviving underperforming hotels. Rubicon had paid an estimated $33.7 million for the property in 2017, as per property records. In 2018, Rubicon also spent roughly $30 million to renovate the hotel. Representatives for ASAP Holdings and Rubicon did not respond to requests for comment. In a previous comment, ASAP Holdings CEO Frank Yuan had told Crain’s the exhaustive renovation effort going on at LaGuardia Airport was a crucial factor to his firm’s interest in the Marriott.
The sale, which poses a good deal of confidence on part of the purchaser, was forged during the pandemic which has devastated the hotel and tourism industry in NYC. A study by the Hotel Association of NYC showed that some 200 hotels had temporarily or permanently shuttered as of late September, and that only half of hotel owners and general managers said their industry would fully recover from the Coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns.
Nevertheless, despite the shadow the pandemic continues to cast, in recent months other large purchases were made for hotels in the city. In September, well-known hotel developer Sam Chang sold his Marriott project at 140 W. 28th St. in Chelsea to the Phoenix Hospitality Group for a price tag of roughly $147 million. In August, a firm linked to Magna Hospitality Group purchased the Embassy Suites by Hilton at 60 W. 37th St. in Midtown from Ashford Hospitality Trust for about $115 million. In December, Billionaire British brothers David and Simon Reuben said they would be buying NYC’s five- star Surrey Hotel at a discounted price, as part of their ambitions to increase their presence in U.S. real estate market. Though the sale has not closed, the transaction is slated to value the posh hotel at less than the $215 million asking price, sources told Bloomberg.
