Holiday Inn Sells in Tough Market
6 April 2010 - In a sign the business climate for hotel transactions may be improving, an affiliate of InterContinental Hotels Group (“IHG”), has sold a 300-room Holiday Inn hotel in Lexington, KY. IHG’s affiliate, Holiday Pacific Partners Limited Partnership, sold its leasehold interest in the property on which the hotel is located, as well as the hotel’s assets.
The buyer, Lexington H.I. Partners, LLC, will operate the hotel for the remainder of 2010 as a Holiday Inn-branded hotel. After the franchise expires, the buyer intends to re-brand the hotel. IHG has more guest rooms than any other hotel company in the world. Its headquarters for the Americas is in Atlanta.
The Holiday Inn North occupies approximately 9 acres of a 13-plus-acre site along Newtown Pike, near the University of Kentucky, Kentucky Horse Park and the I-75/I-64 intersection. The site also includes a Denny’s restaurant and a Chevron gas station.
A Lexington family has owned the property for generations. The hotel lease began in 1965; with options to extend the lease, it could run through 2080.
“The fact that this sale ultimately closed is a positive indication that the market for hotel sales is starting to turn in the right direction,” said Stacy Edelstein Hyken, a hospitality and real estate attorney with Arnall Golden Gregory LLP in Atlanta, who represented the seller. “The hotel’s excellent location, a fair price and having a seller and buyer who were committed to making this deal happen were what allowed us to overcome various hurdles, which arose during the course of the transaction, to finally close on the sale.”
Ms. Hyken said the transaction took awhile to complete “due to the changed economy. Many of the issues related to the deal, such as environmental concerns, were scrutinized more intensely in order to make sure the financing for the deal did not evaporate.”
The buyer’s lender is Bloomfield Capital Partners LLC, based in Birmingham, Mich.
Ms. Hyken can be reached at http://www.agg.com/Contents/AttorneyDetail.aspx?ID=1573
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