Moinian Sells Closed Hotel, Dev Site Near LaGuardia for $50M

The Moinian Group offloaded a shuttered hotel and adjacent multifamily development site near LaGuardia Airport for $50 million.

An entity connected to the developer sold the former Holiday Inn LaGuardia Airport hotel at 37-10 114th Street and the parking lot next door at 37-20 114th Street in Corona, Queens, to an entity tied to investment firm Bayrock Capital, The Real Deal has learned.

The eight-floor, 217-key hotel spans roughly 107,000 square feet and was built in 1963, but closed during the pandemic. It isn’t immediately clear if Bayrock intends to reopen the hotel, but a more lucrative opportunity could sit next door.

The adjacent parking lot comes with plans for an 81,000-square-foot, 103-unit residential building that has qualified for the expired 421a tax abatement, according to sources familiar with the deal. Plans for foundation work on the site were filed in June, days before the tax break lapsed, records show. Bayrock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A mezzanine lender tied to the Moinian Group initiated a UCC foreclosure sale of the equity interests in the Holiday Inn in 2021 and took over the site last February, according to Pincusco. The hotel’s ownership entity was previously controlled by Wing Fung Chau and Aiyun Chen of Sun America Realty Group.

RIPCO Real Estate’s Stephen Preuss and Kevin Louie brokered the sale to Bayrock on behalf of the Moinian Group.

The deal comes a few months after Bayrock bought a 27-room hotel at 2101 Needham Avenue in Edenwald, the Bronx, for $4.2 million in November.

The Holiday Inn is the latest closed hotel to trade hands near LaGuardia Airport in recent weeks. The long-shuttered, 288-key Courtyard by Marriott LaGuardia Hotel at 90-10 Ditmars Boulevard sold for $53 million last month. The buyer is expected to redevelop the 189,000-square-foot building, although it was not immediately clear what the plans are.

Investment sales in the city slumped in the second half of last year under the weight of high interest rates. Dealmakers traded $7.86 billion worth of commercial property in the third quarter, a 30 percent decline from the second quarter, according to a report by Ariel Property Advisors.