A clue about the long struggle for extended stay hotels has turned up in Seattle’s suburbs, where Blackstone Real Estate got out of Residence Inn for significantly less than the price it paid 10 years ago.
The deal for the Residence Inn Seattle East/Redmond involved Clearview Hotel Capital paying $34 million for the property, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported.
The six-story, 180-room establishment is within Fairbourne Properties’ Redmond Town Center, and about two miles away from the headquarters of Microsoft, one of the biggest employers in the Seattle metro market, with 44,000 workers there.
The deal for the property, which first opened in 1998 at 7575 164th Avenue Northeast, comes to about $190,000 per room.
The price is a 30 percent cut from the $48 million Blackstone paid for it 10 years ago.
The sale to Newport Beach, Calif.-based Clearview Hotel Capital, led by CEO Jon Kline, isn’t the only exit Blackstone has made from the hospitality sector in the Seattle area. Another unit of the New York-based private equity firm sold off a Hilton Garden Inn in Reno and a TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Kent earlier this year.
Meanwhile, yet another Blackstone unit, BRE Hotels & Resorts has a Hampton Inn & Suites in Federal Way in its portfolio.
Clearview Hotel Capital has a different track record as it returns to the Seattle market with the Redmond purchase. The investor bought what was called the Vintage Hotel in downtown Seattle in 2007 for $22 million, and sold it five years later for $32 million. The establishment now operates as the Kimpton Hotel Vintage Seattle.
Extended stay hotels, which rely more heavily on corporate travel than other segments of the hospitality market, have faced more of a struggle recovering from the pandemic. The wide adoption of Zoom and other technology has trimmed travel plans and budgets, but players in the local industry say they have detected signs of a rebound this year.