Bidding for Ritz-Carlton Central Park Hotel Starts at $400M

The Ritz-Carlton New York Central Park has gone on the selling block, with bidding for the trophy hotel expected at an estimated valuation of about $400M.

If the estimated valuation of $1.6M per room is achieved in a sale of the Ritz-Carlton, the transaction could become the most lucrative hotel deal in Manhattan since 2018, on a per-room basis.

The priciest hotel deal in Manhattan since 2020, in terms over overall valuation, was last year’s $623M sale of the 610-room Park Lane Hotel, at 36 Central Park South—the same block as the Ritz-Carlton.

Newmark has been tapped to market the property for the owner, a joint venture of Westbrook Partners and Korea Investment Corp., according to a Green Street alert.

The listing encompasses the condominium interest in the 253-room hotel, which occupies the lower 22 floors of a 33-story building at 50 Central Park South. The upper floors of the building have about a dozen residential condos that are separately owned.

The property is being pitched to traditional hotel buyers and redevelopers. A buyer of the Ritz-Carlton would have the option to convert about 140K SF across 12 floors to residential condos, Green Street’s report said.

The luxury property, one of only a handful of hotels that front Central Park, boasts oversized rooms, including 50 suites averaging 1,000 SF. The hotel is subject to a long-term management contract with Ritz-Carlton, a Marriott International subsidiary.

With rates average $1,200/room, the Ritz-Carlton posted revenue of about $900/room last year with occupancy of about 75%. Luxury hotels in surrounding Midtown West submarket had rates averaging about $565, according to CoStar data.

According to Green Street’s Sales Comps Database, only three full-service hotel transactions have exceeded $1M per room since 2018. The most expensive deal during the past five years was the 2019 sale of the 238-room St. Regis New York at $1.3M per room.

The rebound of Manhattan hotels last year, fueled by a resurgence of domestic and international travel, was reflected in a significant surge in big-ticket hotel deals compared to the previous year. Despite a 36% decline in trading activity nationally, sales of New York hotels worth at least $25M increased 122% to nearly $3.6B in 2023.

The building occupied by the Ritz-Carlton opened in 1930 as the 700-room St. Moritz hotel. Millennium Partners of New York bought the property in 1999 and rebranded it as a Ritz-Carlton. Westbrook acquired a majority interest in the hotel in a 2012 deal that valued the property at $218M.

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