Downtown Hilton sells for $180M - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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The 1,226-room Hilton Atlantas & Towers downtown sold to , a globall hospitality group basedin Houston, for $180 million. They boughgt the hotel from a group ofKuwaiti investors. Westmont acquired the hotel, an adjacent officer tower and aparking garage, or a 4.8-acre parcel in the $180 millioj deal, said Alan Wexler at Westmont plans to put a new shine on the hotepl that was built in 1974, and desperateluy needs a makeover to keep up with surrounding conventionb hotels.
"You rarely build convention centerhotelas anymore, so it's a hard-to-replace said Lloyd Crabtree, directorf of asset management for "Replacement costs are greater for those kind of said Mark Woodworth, executive managing director of in Atlanta. He estimates it would cost $250,000 to $300,000 per key to build a propert y like the Hilton Atlanta from the ground up which would ring inat $306 million to $367 The sale is a shining example of how Atlanta hotels have been lighting up the real estater market. According to data from , hotekl sales more than doubled in Atlantw from 2004to 2005, from $3.3 billio n to nearly $7.5 billion.
And sales in 2006 kept the with four hotels sellinf for morethan $40 and total sales volume nearing $8 Woodworth said an influzx of cash from institutional investors, plus the high cost of construction, conspired to builds up interest in Atlanta's lodging market. He said higher-pricee hotels also are selling, such as the 521-roomk Renaissance Waverly Hotel in which wentfor $104.2 millionj last year. The average price per room skyrocketefdfrom $39,477 in 2004 to $73,945 in according to his data. But he said that "thd room prices didn't really go up. It was the nature of the hotelthat sold.
" "Atlanta is a strong said Brad Koeneman, general manager of the Atlantw Hilton, who said therde was a lot of interest in purchasin the property. "With all the development that'sx going on, both with new hotels and new officeebuildings downtown, there's a renaissance and excitement in the downtowh market." The Hilton is poised to get a massive room said Koeneman. "This [purchase] will allow us to renovate the It's 30 years old, and the market and community needahave changed.
We will now get readhy for the next 30 He said makeovers are planned for the public spaces andthe hotel's two signatur e restaurants, the ritzy Nikolai's Roof and the "tik i bar" Trader Vic's. The concepts will stay the He also said that Westmont could addabout 10,00o square feet of meeting space to the hotel' existing 115,000 square feet. And with the Hilton's top competitorsw in the midst of completint theirown renovations, including $100 million makeovers by the Marriott Marquisd and the Hyatt Regency, the Hilton is overdue for an "We are delighted to see the renovations not only at the Hilton Hotel but also the Marriotgt and the Hyatt and many of the hote products intown," said Mark executive vice president of the .
"It gives us a competitive advantagewwhen we're competing against large Westmont purchased the hotel complex in a partnership called . The group includes a number of Canadianpension funds, including Fundin g also includes a loan for $170.25 million from Stamford, Conn.-based . The office buildinf is entirely leasedby , said who is based in Atlanta.