One of the most prominent hotel properties in Laguna Beach has sold in one of two big real estate deals recently completed in the city for a combined $90 million.
Highgate, a New York-based firm that operates more than 100 hotels totaling about 30,000 rooms, last week announced the purchase of the 109-room Pacific Edge Hotel fronting the ocean on Sleepy Hollow Lane.
The hotel is about half a mile south of Broadway Street and the main entry to the downtown district.
Highgate paid $57.5 million, or about $527,000 per room, according to brokerage JLL, whose hotels and hospitality group represented the seller, an affiliate of Westport Capital Partners LLC of Wilton, Conn.
Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing partnered with Highgate to buy the property, according to JLL.
It’s the priciest per-room deal in Orange County this year for a hotel with more than 100 rooms, according to brokerage data.
Westport Capital paid about $43 million for Pacific Edge in 2006, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The property was built in 1963 and previously operated as Vacation Village Hotel. It has 4,000 square feet of meeting space and a few restaurants, including The Deck overlooking the ocean.
Rooms were going for about $280 per night last week.
It’s Highgate’s only OC property. The company focuses on “key gateway markets, such as New York, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Key West and Waikiki,” its website says.
Highgate’s portfolio includes a mix of legacy brands, lifestyle and independent hotels.
Honarkar Adds Portfolio
Also trading hands in Laguna Beach in the past month: a five-property retail and residential portfolio bought by Irvine-based investor 4G Ventures for $32.9 million.
The sale includes an eight-unit vacation rental property a few doors down from Pacific Edge called Sunset Cove Villas; an events center and mixed-use housing property on Laguna Canyon Road; a mixed-use apartments and retail property on South Coast Highway; and a residential lot on Griffith Way.
4G Ventures is headed by Mo Honarkar, a local wireless executive and Laguna Beach resident who owns other area property, including the Royal Hawaiian restaurant in Laguna Beach.
CBRE Group Inc.’s Nathan Holthouser represented the buyer and also worked with the seller in the five-property transaction, along with Brad and Sara Hinman of HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty and Jim Batlle of Coldwell Banker Commercial.