Upscale Hilton Hotel Trades for $59M

ALEXANDRIA, VA-Four years after its development, the Hilton Alexandria Old Town has gotten a new owner. Bethesda, MD-headquartered LaSalle Hotel Properties agreed to fork over $59 million to seller LNR Property Corp. in exchange for the luxury 241-room hotel. LNR, a Miami-based real estate and finance company, built the seven-story structure back in 2000. According to city records, the 190,000-sf building and the one-acre parcel on which it sits have a total current assessed value of nearly $29 million.

“Now is a great time to invest in hotels; the recovery is already here,” Raymond Martz, LaSalle vice president of finance and investor relations, tells GlobeSt.com. “There wasn’t a lot of supply before the recession and there is not a lot in the pipeline. The table is set for the lodging industry to have a number of years of good performance. It’s like the perfect storm.”

Martz’s take on the status of the industry appears to be right on target. “Observers and investors alike are realizing that the market has turned a corner,” researchers conclude in Marcus & Millichap’s Spring 2004 Hospitality Research Report. “This has generated significant demand for the limited supply of available investment properties.”