Trump Tower dressing up model units to spur sales

By Mary Ellen Podmolik, Tribune reporter7:33 p.m. CDT, October 12, 2010 

With the real estate market still reeling and one-third of its units unsold, Trump International Hotel & Tower wants to show potential buyers not just where they can live, but how.

The 92-story skyscraper is finalizing plans to turn five of its unsold condominiums into furnished models, signaling a change in a marketing strategy that until now has focused on attracting buyers to the Trump brand and panoramic views of Chicago.

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Blackstone Stalks Familiar Prey in Hotel Hunt

LUCEO for The Wall Street Journal

Blackstone is taking aim at the Atlanta Marriott Downtown and 13 other hotels it sold in 2006. The latest maneuver follows the buyout shop’s positioning on Highland Hospitality’s 27 hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta and its group deal to buy Extended Stay.

By KRIS HUDSON And LINGLING WEI

Buyout giant Blackstone Group LP is taking aim at 14 hotels owned by Kentucky businessman Bill Yung III’s Columbia Sussex Corp., in the latest case of the investment firm buying at the trough of the market a hotel asset that it sold at the peak.

On Friday, a venture of Blackstone, Centerbridge Partners LP and Paulson & Co. closed on its $3.9 billion acquisition of Extended Stay Inc. and its 680 hotels. It is the same company that Blackstone sold in 2007 for $8 billion.

http://tinyurl.com/2wekrcu

Artisan lien holder won’t foreclose Move avoids delinquent tax bill, for now

 

 

 

El Paso’s troubled Artisan Hotel was posted for foreclosure last week.

But William Dyer, CEO of Integrated Financial Associates, which was the principal supplier of funds to former Artisan owner Douglas Da Silva, decided not to proceed with the foreclosure.

As a result, the hotel will remain in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and protected from a $286,492 delinquent property tax bill, according to Gordon Foster of El Paso’s Best Co., who is following the hotel’s misfortunes.

The hotel’s 2011 tax bill of $116,953 comes due next January.

Foster, who met with Dyer last week, quoted him as saying he would not foreclose and take possession of the hotel because IFA didn’t want to be forced to pay the back taxes yet.

http://tinyurl.com/2cbkwj9

Partnership to Acquire and Manage Minneapolis’s Northland Inn

Hotel Asset Value Enhancement (hotelAVE) has partnered with an institutional investment fund to acquire the Northland Inn, an all-suite hotel and conference center located in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, Minn.

The dollar figure for the transaction was not disclosed but the partnership is committed to substantial reinvestment in the property with a goal of reclaiming the hotel’s prominence in the marketplace.

Rhode Island-based Hotel Asset Value Enhancement Inc. is one of the nation’s largest hotel real estate advisory firms.  The institutional investment fund is managed by Fidelity Real Estate Group, a division of Pyramis Global Advisors, a Fidelity Investments Company.  StepStone Hospitality, hotelAVE’s sister company, will take over management of the property, effective immediately.

http://tinyurl.com/2u65fsj

More hotels in financial distress

By Lori Weisberg

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 6:23 p.m.

/ Courtesy Atlas Hospitality Group

The San Diego Mission Plaza Hotel & Suites went into foreclosure earlier this year and was recently re-sold.

Despite signs that the lodging industry is showing a slight rebound, a growing number of local hotels are in financial distress, with San Diego leading all other California counties in the number of foreclosed properties during the third quarter, according to a report released this week.

Where San Diego ranked fifth just one quarter earlier, with six lender-owned hotels, the number jumped to 13 during the last quarter, a 160 percent surge over a year ago. Following close behind San Diego were Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

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Judge appoints third party to take over management of Naples Bay Resort

NAPLES — The Naples Bay Resort is in the hands of a receiver.

A receiver was appointed Friday, following a 2-1/2 hour hearing in Collier County Circuit Court.

“The receiver will take over the management, the advertising, the marketing, basically take over everything,” said Naples developer Jack Antaramian.

Antaramian recently took over the mortgage for the resort after the lender, Regions Bank, headquartered in Alabama, foreclosed on it.

The amount owed on the mortgage is $36 million. Antaramian invested $10 million in the project himself and still plans to foreclose on it.

Circuit Judge Cynthia Pivacek approved the receiver.

The former management company, Benchmark Hospitality International, seemed to be doing a good job, Antaramian said, but because of a legal conflict with some of his partners in the project he hadn’t received any financial reports for three to six months.

http://tinyurl.com/2dyhs84

San Diego County leads California in 3Q hotel foreclosures

SAN DIEGO —- San Diego County led California in the number of hotels foreclosed in the third quarter with 13, followed by Riverside County with a dozen, according to a quarterly survey of distressed hotels in the state.

In California, the 2010 survey for the three-month period ended Sept. 30 showed 529 hotels in default or foreclosure, a 10.7 percent increase from the quarter ended June 30, and a 71.2 percent increase over the third quarter ended a year ago.

http://tinyurl.com/24kepnh

 

Lake Lawn to close, laying off 126

Saturday, October 9, 2010  |  Modified: Monday, October 11, 2010

The Business Journal of Milwaukee

Lake Lawn Resort, Delavan, is closing Dec. 8 and will lay off 126 employees, according to a mass layoff notice filed with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

The announcement comes the day after Madison-based AnchorBank, which won a $34.4 million foreclosure judgment against the property in March, was the sole bidder in a sheriff’s auction of the resort. AnchorBank’s bid of $19.97 million probably won’t be confirmed for four to six weeks, said Deputy Mark Drews, process server for the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office.

The property’s receiver recently sent letters to reservation holders at Lake Lawn saying that reservations after Nov. 30 probably won’t be honored.

Read more: Lake Lawn to close, laying off 126 – The Business Journal of Milwaukee

Could it be Hilton again? Lender testifies foreclosure will lure chain back

Saturday, October 09, 2010

By Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Hilton” currently is gone from the top of the Downtown hotel that carried its name for 51 years, but maybe not for good.

Based on testimony in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Friday, Hilton could return as the franchise for the city’s largest hotel if New York-based lender BlackRock Financial Management Inc. wins its bid to foreclose against the owner of the property.

Eloisa Mascarenas, a BlackRock vice president, testified that Hilton had agreed to enter into a long-term franchise license deal with the lender if it ends up owning the hotel through a foreclosure.

http://tinyurl.com/2bjung4

Historic Arizona golf resort may be in danger of foreclosure

Friday, October 8th, 2010, 3:51 pm

The oldest golf course in the state of Arizona, founded the same year the state entered the union, may now face foreclosure after defaulting on its financial commitments.

Investors in the 97-year-old Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort recently defaulted on a $23.9 million loan from Guaranty Bank and Trust Co., according to the Maricopa County Superior Court.

The court appointed Smiling Hospitality as the receiver to oversee the resort until financial issues are resolved, a sale occurs, or a notice of foreclosure is filed. The resort is still in business, will continue to pay its employees and serve its guests, said Kirby Payne of the HVS Capital Group, which has been retained to manage the hotel on behalf of the receivership.

http://tinyurl.com/2dhjynu