Urban Commons LLC, a Los Angeles-based real estate investor with an office in Corona del Mar, has added the third area hotel to its portfolio in a year.
The company last week closed on a deal to buy the 222-room Embassy Suites Anaheim-North hotel, according to the property’s former owner, Irving, Texas-based FelCor Lodging Trust Inc. The sales price was $25.5 million, or about $115,000 per room, FelCor said.
FelCor said in July that Urban Commons made a $1.3 million hard-money deposit toward the purchase price.
The Embassy Suites Anaheim North is located at 3100 East Frontera St., just off the Riverside (91) Freeway.
The seven-story hotel is located about six miles from Disneyland, and totals about 163,000 square feet. It counted an occupancy rate of about 80% last year.
The hotel brought in about $9.4 million in revenue in 2011, a 13% increase from 2010 levels, according to marketing materials from HREC Investment Advisors, which was marketing the property for FelCor.
HREC marketing materials said the hotel is currently managed by Hilton Worldwide, but the new owner had the option of converting the property into an Embassy Suites franchised property.
FelCor, a real estate investment trust, said proceeds from the sale–its only Orange County property–will be used to repay debt.
The Anaheim property is at least the third local hotel in which Urban Commons has looked to invest in.
Its first OC deal, inked about a year ago, was for the 255-room Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Anaheim, next to the Disneyland Resort and its Downtown Disney District shopping center. That property traded hands for about $26.3 million, or about $104,000 per room for the hotel.
Last month, the Business Journal reported that Urban Commons was part of a group that bought the Hotel Hanford, a boutique hotel in Costa Mesa that got a big renovation a few years ago. The 228-room hotel located near South Coast Plaza sold for a reported $23.8 million, or about $104,000 per room.
Property records also show Wilton, Conn.-based investment manager Westport Capital Partners was involved in the Hotel Hanford’s new ownership group, along with Urban Commons, which is also said to have invested in apartments and other residential deals. It’s not known whether Westport was involved in either of the other two hotel transactions.
Silicon Surge
Newport Beach-based Irvine Company has added another sizeable office property to its Silicon Valley portfolio.
Orange County’s largest landlord recently confirmed that it had bought a 32-acre site in Santa Clara, just off Highway 101, from Equity Office Partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The property currently counts some older office buildings. Irvine Co. officials said they were in the process of evaluating plans for the site, and expected to move ahead with a “significant reinvestment” in 2013.
The landlord—which now bills itself as California’s largest provider of office space–expects to add new office buildings at the site, to serve the region’s technology industry.
The property now counts about 500,000 square feet of office space, according to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, which first reported the sale. The land is entitled for about 2 million square feet of development.
“Silicon Valley is a key part of the Irvine Company’s strategy to grow its California portfolio,” Doug Holte, president of Irvine Co.’ office properties division, said in a statement. “As Silicon Valley companies expand and execute on their business plans, we look forward to continuing to partner with them.”
Irvine Co. already has one section of an office development underway in the area, a three-building project called Santa Clara Gateway that will total 447,000 square feet in its first phase. Dell Inc. has reportedly committed to leasing one of the three buildings.
A second phase of development at Santa Clara Gateway, which could start later this year, would bring development at the project closer to 911,000 square feet.
In addition to development in Santa Clara, Irvine Co. owns and manages more than 3 million square feet of offices in Sunnyvale, Milpitas and San Jose. It’s bought more than 1 million square feet of buildings in the Silicon Valley over the past year.
