MCR dropped $118.3 million for a Hilton-branded hotel near Miami International Airport, marking the firm’s continued appetite for South Florida hospitality properties.
MCR bought the Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon at 5101 Blue Lagoon Drive from Park Hotels & Resorts, according to news releases from the seller and buyer. Park Hotels, a Tysons, Virginia-based publicly traded real estate investment trust, used the proceeds to pay off a $50 million revolver balance.
The sale of the 508-key hotel breaks down to $233,000 per room.
Completed in 1983 on 20.6 acres, the 14-story hotel includes a 32,000-square-foot meeting space, property records show.
The Hilton is in unincorporated Miami-Dade, near the Waterford Business District, a 3 million-square-foot office complex that spans 250 acres south of the airport.
The deal marks MCR’s second investment in a hotel near the airport in less than two months. In December, the firm bought the 135-key Hyatt Place Miami Airport East at 3549 Le Jeune Road in Miami for $16.6 million.
MCR’s only other South Florida property is the 112-key Residence Inn by Marriott, which the firm developed in 2015 at 2880 Center Port Circle in Pompano Beach.
MCR, billed as the fourth largest hotel owner-operator nationwide, has a $5 billion portfolio spanning 149 independent and branded hotels with more than 21,000 rooms across 37 states and 102 cities, according to its website. Led by CEO Tyler Morse, MCR has offices in New York, Dallas, Chicago and Richmond.
Park Hotels, led by CEO Thomas Baltimore, has been on a selling spree. Over the past year, it sold eight hotels for over $435 million combined, according to Park Hotels’ news release. The firm has a 46-property portfolio, its website shows.
Miami-Dade’s hotel market has been on an upswing since late last year, though it slowed slightly in late January after the holiday season ended. In the week ending Jan. 21, occupancy dropped by 7.8 percent from the previous week and revenue per available room decreased by 8.4 percent, according to the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.
In the biggest hotel deal of last year, Sunstone Hotel Investors paid $232 million for the 339-key oceanfront Confidante Miami Beach at 4041 Collins Avenue.