San Clemente-based hotel owner Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. said Thursday it has reacquired a hotel it stopped making debt payments on last year.
The company said it paid $24.8 million for the Renaissance Westchester Hotel, a 347-room hotel in White Plains, N.Y., that Sunstone used to own before it went into receivership.
Sunstone, which owns all or part of 40 hotels, made waves last year by giving back some hotels to lenders after going underwater on their mortgages.
In mid-2009, Sunstone stopped making payments on a mortgage for the Renaissance Westchester and entered talks with lenders about reworking debt for the hotel.
The reacquisition does away with Renaissance Westchester’s prior $29.2 million mortgage and makes Sunstone the full owner of the hotel.
Sunstone also said it is re-evaluating a plan to prepay an $81 million mortgage secured by its Hilton Time Square hotel in New York.
The company had planned to pay off the loan in the second or third quarter and now may refinance the mortgage by year’s end.
Sunstone also has seen improvement in operations at its hotels, Chief Executive Art Buser said in a preview of second-quarter results for investors and analysts.
The company projects a 6.5% second-quarter rise in revenue per available room, a key yardstick for hotels.
Second-quarter funds from operations, a profitability measures for owners of hotels and other real estate, is projected at $15.8 million to $17.7 million. Analysts had been expecting $14 million.
Sunstone is on the hunt for acquisitions but “will continue to carefully pick our spots and will not rush to acquire assets,” Buser said.
