Rockpoint Group has completed the sale of its interests in two hotel properties within the last month, generating a total of $375 million in revenues for itself and its partners.Â
The Boston-based real estate investment manager announced today that it closed on the sale of the 1,053-room Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers for $250 million last week. The buyer, Sunstone Hotel Investors, previously had disclosed in its first-quarter earnings results in May that it had agreed to acquire the hotel in a deal structured as a tax-deferred exchange. At the time, the publicly-traded lodging REIT said it would fund the transaction with a combination of the proceeds received from the sale of a commercial property portfolio in January, cash on hand and the assumption of a non-recourse loan secured by the hotel.
Rockpoint had purchased the Park Plaza hotel for $125 million in June 2011 on behalf of Rockpoint Real Estate Fund III, teaming with Donald Saunders and hotel management firm Highgate Hotels to buy the asset from a partnership between Saunders and Starwood Hotels and Resorts. During its ownership, Rockpoint, Saunders and Highgate added 112 hotel rooms and street-level retail at the Boston Park Plaza, as well as updating its lobby, restaurant and guestrooms, to improve revenue and operating profit. Â
The private equity real estate firm's Fund III is understood to have owned about 90 percent of the hotel asset, of which 100 percent was sold to Sunstone. The 14-story property, formerly the Statler Hotel, opened in 1927 and is located in Boston's Back Bay district, adjacent to the Boston Common.
Separately, Rockpoint announced that in mid-June it sold its majority interest in the Courtyard by Marriott Waikiki Beach in Hawaii to Highgate, which was managing the hotel, in a deal that valued the property at $125 million. Rockpoint had bought the 401-room property with Lodging Capital Partners for $85 million, also in June 2011 on behalf of Fund III. Â
Over the last nine months, Rockpoint has sold or recapitalized seven hotels with a total value of $1.5 billion, including the Alex Hotel, the Flatotel and the Milford Plaza in New York City; the Bacara Resort & Spa in Goleta, California; and the Hotel Le Parc in Paris. In March, the firm held a final closing on $1.95 billion in equity for its most recent real estate opportunity fund, Rockpoint Real Estate Fund IV.