By Jack Stubbs
A hotel in the heart of Redmond Town Center recently changed hands for a hefty sum.
On Wednesday, February 28th, Seattle Marriott Redmond Hotel sold for $65.6 million, or approximately $250,381 per room, according to public records filed with King County. The buyer of the property shares the same San Francisco address as New York-based Centerview Partners, an independent investment banking and advisory firm. Based on public documents and the entities named in the purchase, Centerview is working with New York-based AllianceBernstein, now known as AB, on the acquisition.
The seller of the property was The Blackstone Group—the name of Byron Blount, managing director of Blackstone’s real estate group, appears in public documents—one of the world’s leading investment firms also based in New York City. The transaction was recorded on March 2nd.
The buyer did not respond to calls for comment about the transaction in time for the publishing of this story. Blackstone declined to comment.
The seven-story Seattle Marriott Redmond Hotel, built in 2003 and located at 7401 164th Ave. NE, includes 262 rooms. Some of the primary amenities of the hotel include a 24-hour fitness center, outdoor pool and meeting event space, according to the web site. Some of the room highlights include multi-purpose work station, built-in lighting, modular furniture and walk-in showers. The guest rooms and concierge level rooms total 300 square feet with nightly rates between $104 and $124, according to the web site.
Located within the Redmond Town Center, the hotel is just steps away from various shopping, dining, retail and entertainment options, according to the web site. Additionally, the property is located in close proximity to Microsoft’s Redmond campus, which sits roughly three miles to the south. The hotel is roughly three miles to the east of Kirkland and is approximately two miles from access to Washington State Route 520.
Founded in 2006, Centerview has offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Palo Alto and Los Angeles, and provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, financial restructurings, valuation and capital structure to companies, institutions and governments, according to the company’s web site. Since the company’s founding, it has advised on over $2 trillion of transactions.
Founded in 1985, Blackstone Group has since become a preeminent investment firm, emphasizing its aim to “create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work,” according to the company’s web site. The firm has $115 billion of assets under management and operates worldwide, with investments and people in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. The company has 220 million square feet of office space globally; 75 million square feet of retail assets; and 207,000 hotel units globally, as of September 30th, 2017.
Last fall, Blackstone was involved in one of the largest commercial sales of last year. In September 2017, the company acquired the 22-story historic Exchange Building in downtown Seattle for $156.5 million from Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners.
The hotel market in Seattle has experienced significant activity over the last few months. During 2017, and excluding national portfolios, resorts and potential tear downs, there were 23 sales of hotels in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties at prices exceeding $2 million, according to Kidder Mathews’ fourth quarter 2017 Seattle Hotel Market Overview report. The aggregate transaction volume was $415 million: with 2,005 guest rooms, the weighted average price per room was $206,906.
And the recent sales price of the Marriott Redmond hotel—approximately $250,381 per room—is eclipsed by several other hotel sales posted last year. There were four hotel sales at prices in excess of $50 million: the 222-room Hilton Garden Inn in the Seattle CBD sold for $88M, or just under $400,000 per room. Two other downtown properties, the Pan Pacific Hotel and the Kimpton Alexis Hotel, each sold at over $500,000 per room, while The Hotel Deca in Seattle’s University District was purchased for $55 million, or about $350,000 per room, according to the report.
