Hotel REIT Buys 3 Embassy Suites in Buckeye State

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Embassy Suites Cleveland Rockside

Cleveland and Cincinnati—American Hotel Income Properties REIT LP of Vancouver, B.C., has agreed to acquire for approximately $124 million three Embassy Suites by Hilton hotels totaling 782 guestrooms in the Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati metro areas. The portfolio is being acquired at a weighted-average cap rate of about 8 percent on trailing 12 months NOI.

The 284-key Embassy Suites Columbus Dublin is in Dublin, Ohio, at the convergence of I-270 and State Route 161, about 15 miles north of downtown Columbus and near the Ohio State University campus.

The 271-key Embassy Suites Cleveland Rockside is in Independence, Ohio, about 10 miles south of downtown Cleveland and 12 miles east of Cleveland Hopkins Airport, at the convergence of interstates 77 and 480. The hotel is near a number of demand generators, including the homes of the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Browns.

The 227-key Embassy Suites Cincinnati Rivercenter is on the Ohio River overlooking downtown Cincinnati in Covington, Ky. The hotel is near the Northern Kentucky Convention Center and the Duke Energy Convention Center.

The seller was not identified, and AHIP declined to provide additional information requested by Commercial Property Executive.

The three hotels are being acquired for about $159,000 per guestroom, which is below AHIP’s estimate of replacement cost. The REIT expects to fund the purchase price using a portion of the net proceeds from a recently announced bought deal offering of units, plus a new $65 million CMBS loan.

The mortgage is expected to have a 10-year term, with interest-only payments for the first three years and then amortized over a 30-year period for the remaining seven years. It’s expected to have a fixed interest rate of approximately 4.7 percent for the entire term.

This transaction is expected to close in late January.

The hotels will be managed by AHIP’s exclusive hotel manager, Tower Rock Hotels & Resorts Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of O’Neill Hotels and Resorts Ltd.

“AHIP’s ability to use conservatively financed, long-term, low-cost, fixed-rate debt with a significant interest-only period highlights a key aspect of our strategy of providing consistent and stable returns to our unitholders,” Rob O’Neill, AHIP’s CEO, said in a prepared statement.

The hospitality market in Columbus contradicts the general national trend, with demand outpacing supply, in part because of ongoing renovations at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, according to an Integra Realty Resources mid-year 2016 report.

In Cleveland, a 3.0 percent room count increase in advance of the Republican National Convention followed a 3.5 percent jump in the first half of 2015, according to a second-half 2016 Midwest hospitality report from Marcus & Millichap. Average occupancy fell 60 basis points to 60.8 percent, and RevPAR has dipped slightly year to date.

And in Cincinnati, robust demand drivers have allowed the hotel sector to post respectable gains in occupancy and ADR, in turn generating RevPAR growth of 6.1 percent, again according to Marcus & Millichap.

Image courtesy of Embassy Suites Cleveland Rockside