By Jack Stubbs
In a transaction that recently recorded, on January 3rd, a Comfort Inn Hotel in Federal Way, Washington sold for $15 million, or approximately $127,118 per room, King County records show. The buyer of the property is listed as Richard & Partners LLC based in Newcastle, Washington, and the seller is Song & Sons Inc. based in Bellevue.
The Comfort Inn Hotel, located at 31622 Pacific Hwy S. and sitting on just under three acres, is a four-story property built in 1998 that contains 118 rooms, according to public documents. The hotel includes various amenities for its guests including a fitness and business center, indoor heated pool and outdoor parking, according to its web site.
Located at the corner of Washington State Route 99 and S. 320th St., the property is adjacent to the Pavilions Centre shopping complex and is also just half a mile from downtown Federal Way. Additionally, the Comfort Inn is approximately five miles east of Dash Point State Park and four miles south of Saltwater State Park.
Additionally, the property is about twenty miles south of Seattle via I-5 and fifteen miles south of Renton on the edge of Lake Washington.
There have been a number of large-scale hotel sales in the Puget Sound region—and more locally in Federal Way—in recent months, indicating that the hospitality sector remains active heading into early 2019, with particular interest from New York-based entities. In mid-October 2018, New York-based investment firm Blackstone Group purchased the 142-room Hampton Inn & Suites hotel in Federal Way located at 31720 Gateway Blvd. S. for $33.5 million, or approximately $235,915 per room, from Royal Hospitality LLC.
On January 23rd, New York-based Parkview International acquired the 240-Room Embassy Suites by Hilton-Seattle Hotel in Bellevue for $59.1 million from AWH Partners, another New York-based real estate investment firm.
And in early December 2018, another landmark was reached, indicating that changes lie ahead for the Puget Sound region’s hospitality market. On December 10th, Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced the opening of Hyatt Regency Seattle in the city’s Central Business District, which is officially the largest hotel in the Pacific Northwest.
Located at 808 Howell Street in close proximity to the Washington State Convention Center, the iconic Pike Place Market and the Space Needle, the 45-story hotel features 1,260 guest rooms and approximately 103,000 square feet of dynamic meeting and event spaces, as well as a state-of-the-art fitness center.
Hyatt Regency Seattle was built by local developer R.C. Hedreen Company in collaboration with Seattle-based companies LMN Architects and Sellen Construction Group.
In another example of the dynamism of the local hospitality market and construction industry in Seattle, in mid-October, general contractor Mortenson announced plans for the in-the-works seven-story, 264-room citizenM Hotel in South Lake Union.
citizenM, designed by Gensler, is the first full volumetric modular hotel built from separate units. The various parts of the modular units are assembled at citizenM’s factory in Europe. This design and delivery method, known as structural modular design, is widely adopted in Europe, Asia and Australia, but is a first-of-its-kind for Seattle hospitality, according to Mortenson’s press release about the project.The citizenM hotel units were manufactured and produced under the supervision of full-time inspectors, including City of Seattle LNI, then the entire set of units were shipped on one private vessel from Europe to Seattle.
