Area hospitality industry sources tell GlobeSt.com the per-room price was far below typical replacement cost today of about $100,000 per room for a comparable property. Howard A. Silver, Equity's president and CEO, and J. Mitchell Collins, chief financial officer, didn't return GlobeSt.com's phone calls to learn how long Equity had owned the property and what the occupancy level was at closing.

However, in a prepared statement, Silver says the deal was done because "the transaction is consistent with our strategy of the timely sales of properties when they no longer provide the long-term growth opportunity of our core portfolio." He says that "as a 20-year-old hotel, this sale also helps to reduce the average of our portfolio."

The REIT owns 126 hotels with 15,027 rooms in 36 states. Silver says the disposition price "equates to a capitalization rate of approximately 4%, based on trailing 12 months net operating income."