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New Vantis Hotel in Aliso Viejo Sells for $38 Million

A recently built Homewood Suites hotel in Aliso Viejo has become the first acquisition here by a Texas-based investor that specializes in the hospitality market and is on the lookout for more deals this year.

Summit Hotel Properties Inc., an Austin-based real estate investment trust that has a market value of about $1.5 billion, this month closed on the purchase of the Homewood Suites by Hilton Aliso Viejo-Laguna Beach, a 129-room property that opened about a year ago.

The four-story hotel is part of Shea Properties’ Vantis mixed-use development in Aliso Viejo and about a 10-minute drive from Laguna Beach.

Vantis, a nearly 40-acre site near Aliso Viejo Town Center, also includes offices, homes and a newly built luxury apartment complex. The hotel and 435-unit Vantis Apartment complex that opened late last year were the last two properties to be built on the site.

The Homewood Suites property was developed and sold by a unit of Stonebridge Companies, a Denver-based hotel developer. It bought the land from Shea Properties in 2014.

The new hotel offers a combination of studio, one- and two-bedroom suites, with amenities including a fitness center, business center, outdoor heated saline pool and outdoor wraparound patio, complete with full bar and fire pit, according to Stonebridge.

Weekend rates at the Homewood Suite are a little under $200 per night for a one-bedroom suite, according to the hotel’s website.

Property records show the building sold this month to Summit Hotel Properties for about $38 million, or about $295,000 per room.

The property is the only one in OC for Summit, which reports owning a portfolio of 81 hotels totaling 10,964 guestrooms, in 23 states.

It has six other California properties, including three Hampton Inns, according to the company’s website.

The hotel operator has yet to confirm the purchase of the hotel, but alluded to an impending $38 million buy of an unnamed 129-room hotel during its last earnings call in February.

In terms of potential acquisitions, the company is on the lookout for “hidden gems that provide strong ongoing yields and a value creation opportunity,” Dan Hansen, the company’s chief executive, said during last month’s call.

The Homewood Suites brand falls under what McLean, Va.-based hotel operator Hilton Worldwide calls its “All Suite” product line, whose slate of hotels typically include fully equipped kitchens, and separate living and sleeping areas.

Other Hilton brands under the All Suite umbrella include Embassy Suites by Hilton and Home2 Suites.

That product type made up nearly 15% of Hilton’s current inventory as of 2015, and almost 20% of its pipeline by rooms.

One other Homewood Suites opened this year in OC, a 161-room Homewood Suites by Hilton Irvine/John Wayne Airport. The project, on Red Hill Avenue, was built by Irvine-based R.D. Olson Construction and developed by DKN Hotels, also of Irvine.

The price paid by Summit Hotel Properties for the Aliso Viejo hotel falls in line on the going rate these days for a new Hilton All Suites product in Orange County, according to Alan Reay, president of Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group.

The average per-room price for a hotel in OC that sold last year was $274,176, according to data from Atlas Hospitality, a hotel consultancy and brokerage. That price includes high-end luxury resorts like the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel and Montage Laguna Beach, as well as more affordable properties.

Over the last year, seven Homewood Suites have sold throughout the U.S. with per room prices ranging from $81,000 to over $575,000, according to Atlas Hospitality’s data.

It’s a “very desirable product (with) high demand from buyers,” according to Reay.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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