Carey Watermark Buys KC Marriott for $57M

KANSAS CITY—Carey Watermark Investors Inc., a non-traded REIT, has just acquired the Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza, a 19-story, 295-room full-service hotel, for nearly $57 million. The hotel is located about four miles south of downtown in the Country Club Plaza area, a 55-acre shopping district that has recently seen signs of increasing demand. The Country Club Plaza, for example, has experienced a cumulative average growth rate in RevPAR of 4.4% since 2009, Carey Watermark officials say.  

Furthermore, the downtown has begun attracting a host of new residents, many of them millennials. And, as reported in GlobeSt.com, the office market has also seen growth. There is even talk of starting speculative development. Ken Block of Block Real Estate Services LLC, for example, recently announced plans to build a $78 million, 12-story office tower in the Country Club Plaza area.