CNL Hospitality Closes First Half With Six New Assets Valued at $260M

ORLANDO-In the Downtown offices of CNL Hospitality Corp., the secretaries have whitened out the word recession on desk dictionaries because the company hasn’t heard of the term, based on its first-half acquisition performance.

The five-year-old hotel investment/development arm of the $5.3 billion, 29-year-old CNL Financial Group Inc. of Orlando is starting four or five new development projects a year at average hard costs of $80,000 to $90,000 per unit and average acquisition prices of $33 million per property.

In an industry where some of the players are barely hanging on, CNL Hospitality bought six properties valued at $260 million or an average $43 million per property in the first half.