WestCoast Buying Red Lion Bellevue Inn

SPOKANE, WA-Locally based WestCoast Hospitality Corp. is acquiring the Red Lion Bellevue Inn, a 181-room property on Main Street in Bellevue, WA. The publicly traded hotel REIT has been leasing the property since January 2000. The lease agreement included a purchase option, which the company exercised. The acquisition is scheduled to close early in the second quarter.

The purchase was made by WestCoast CEO Art Coffey during the quarterly conference call regarding the company’s fourth quarter financial results, which were released Wednesday morning. The pre-set purchase price is not being released until the sale closes.

WestCoast posted a fourth quarter loss of $2.03 million in the final three months of 2003, which is 50% more than the company lost in the fourth quarter of 2002. Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2003 was $41.2 million, compared to $44.4 million in the final three months of 2002. The quarterly loss per share was $0.20 for the quarter, $0.05 worse than the fourth quarter of 2002.