Bartell Buys Harbor Island Hilton During Fundamentals Boom
Jumping on strengthening hotel fundamentals, San Diego-based Bartell Hotels has acquired the San Diego Airport Hilton Hotel for $37.7M.
The 211-room hotel on Harbor Island was purchased from Square Mile Capital Management. Bartell now owns eight local hotels, and expects to inject $5M in upgrades into the Hilton.
The nine-story hotel has 9k SF of meeting/banquet space and was built in the late '60s. It was last renovated about 15 years ago.
Bartell is buying at a time when San Diego's hotels have been riding a booming wave. According to a recent Marcus & Millichap report, average daily room rates in the county rose 5%, while RevPAR jumped nearly 12% from last year. And occupancy "soared more than 400 basis points from the first quarter 2014" to more than 75%, the report notes. "Leisure travel in particular has been stout, raising weekend occupancy above 90% on several occasions so far this year." We recently reported how the market has even boosted LaSalle Hotel Properties' operating revenues at its San Diego holdings, including a nearly $3M jump to L'Augerge Del Mar (here).
