The sale is part of the estimated $500 million in dispositions Boston Properties has planned for 2007 and was announced at Wednesday's Q4 2006 earnings call. Not including 5 Times Square in New York City, which is slated to close this quarter, the company has identified $500 million worth of assets that will hit the market by the end of Q1, according to Doug Linde, EVP and CFO.
"The exceptionally strong demand for our type of asset by selectively selling certain properties, while we know that the NOI from those assets is going to grow over time we also think that the underwriting expectations that are embedded in current market pricing justifies harvesting to the significant market value we have created in some properties even at the expense of moderately reducing our portfolio size," Linde said.
Over the last two years Boston Properties has sold more than $3.5 billion of properties. The latest disposition becomes part of an emerging hotel sector in Boston that has seen nine hotels enter the market for sale in the last two years.
"It's one of the top performing properties in the city and one of the top performing properties in the Marriott chain," Matt Arrants, with Pinnacle Advisory Group, tells GlobeSt.com.
Arrants says he expects competition for the asset to be stiff with the final selling price to be between $400,000 and $600,000 per room. The hotel's prime waterfront location just steps from Boston's Financial District and adjacent to the New England Aquarium could make the property highly sought after by institutional investors and REITS.
"I think it will be somewhat competitive because it's just such a landmark asset," Arrants says. "It's in arguably one of the best locations in the city and has a strong track record and history."
The Marriott Long Wharf is among nine hotel properties in Boston to be placed on the market since 2005. The pricing is in line with recent Boston hotel sales. The 273-room Ritz Carlton, which recently sold for $170 million to Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces of Mumbai, India. The sale factored out to $622,000 per room. The 149-room Copley Square Hotel in the Back Bay recently sold to CapStar Hotel Co. of Arlington, VA, for $390,000 a room, or about $54 million, Arrants notes. Earlier this week, Diamond Rock Hospitality Co. acquired the 793-key Westin Waterfront Boston Hotel and an adjacent property for $330.3 million.The seven-story, 420,000-sf Marriott Long Wharf features 391 rooms, 11 suites and 17 meeting rooms totaling 10,825 sf, according to Boston Properties website. It is also home to the Oceana Restaurant.
Boston Properties declined to comment and officials from by Hodges Ward Elliott did not return calls from GlobeSt.com in time for deadline.
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