Jones Lang LaSalle


Shamrock-Hostmark Fund Buys 241-Room Hotel
By Eric Peterson

Radisson Hotel PrincetonPRINCETON, NJ-Shamrock-Hostmark Hotel Fund LP has acquired the 241-room Radisson Hotel Princeton here. The fund is co-sponsored by Shamrock Holdings of California and the Schaumburg, IL-based Hostmark Hospitality, which will operate the property. The unnamed seller was represented in the transaction by Molinaro Koger.

The sale price was not disclosed. However, according to Mark Morris, SVP of the McLean, VA-based Molinaro Koger, who structured the transaction, "the property was obtained at a discount to our estimated replacement cost of $35 million."

And the property, located on an eight-acre site, won’t fly the Radisson flag much longer. What the new owner has in mind for the hotel, according to Morris, is an $8-million renovation that, among other things, will turn it into a Doubletree Hotel. "This was a strategic acquisition for Shamrock-Hostmark," Morris says. "It will be an asset to their growing hotel portfolio."

The acquisition is the second engineered by the Shamrock-Hostmark pairing, according to George Buchler, vice president of Shamrock-Hostmark Hotel Fund LP, the first pick-up being the Springhill Suites by Marriott at Miami International Airport. The partnership is also under contract to buy the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the airport in San Antonio.

"These assets are examples of the types of acquisitions the fund will continue to make over the coming months," Buchler says. "The fund intends to seek out hotels that would benefit from enhanced management and/or market repositioning through further investment."

Besides its 241 rooms, the Princeton property has more than 7,000 sf of meeting space, a fitness center, indoor swimming pool and restaurant. The location is near Dow Jones’ headquarters, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Princeton University.