L.A.’s Oldest Operating Hotel Welcomes Bidders

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The oldest L.A. hotel in continuous operation, downtown’s Barclay Hotel, has been listed for sale.

This historic building, built in 1897, is likely to sell for more than $40 million, said the listing broker for the 103 W. Fourth St. property, Bill Stimming of Keller Williams.

“Ultimately, this will be a boutique hotel similar to the Ace,” Stimming said, citing the Ace Hotel that transformed the downtown area around it and recently sold for $103 million.

But a major difference between the six-story, 165-room, 100,000-square-foot hotel listed by its longtime owner, Vasquez Trust, and the Ace is that the Barclay sits right on the edge of Skid Row and has been used as low-income, single-resident occupancy housing.

A conversion is likely to rouse neighborhood tensions, to say the least.

In order to convert the property back to its original use, the buyer will have to relocate roughly 30 low-income tenants to another SRO location, Stimming said, at an estimated cost somewhere between $2 million and $3 million.

“It’s the responsibility of whoever buys the hotel,” he said. “It’s a matter of choosing the right buyer who knows that process.”

The buyer will also have to be familiar with the restoration of historical properties, he said. The inside of the Barclay will likely have to be gutted, but the new owner will have to preserve the façade.

The Fourth Street lobby contains many of the beaux art hotel’s original elements, and was featured in the Jack Nicholson film “As Good as It Gets” as fictional Café 24 Heures.

Buying Big

Santa Monica real estate investment trust Macerich Co. is buying big in Kansas City, Mo. – 15 blocks big, to be specific.

In a joint venture with Raleigh, N.C., real estate investment trust Taubman Centers, Macerich has agreed to acquire Country Club Plaza, one of Kansas City’s most famous assets.

The joint venture is paying $660 million for the massive site in a sale that is expected to close Feb. 1.

The duo paid $508 a square foot for the 1.3 million-square-foot mixed-use complex to the seller, Highwoods Properties.

Taubman and Macerich will each own 50 percent of the property and will jointly manage its 18 properties, which are 95 percent leased.

The 804,000-square-foot retail portion is leased to tenants that include Apple Inc., H&M, Tesla, Lululemon and the Cheesecake Factory.

Arthur Coppola, chairman and chief executive of Macerich, said in a statement that the investment embodies the firm’s strategy of taking capital out of assets that are growing slowly, such as the local Panorama Mall in Panorama City, which it recently sold for $100 million – and reinvesting it in “market-dominant centers with stronger growth prospects.”

Both buyers in the joint venture are experienced shopping center owners. Macerich owns 55 million square feet of real estate in 50 regional shopping centers. Its L.A. properties include Santa Monica Place, Los Cerritos Center, Stonewood Center in Downey and the Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles.

Capital Shift

In a move that surprised many onlookers in the industry, prominent broker Kevin Shannon has moved to Newmark Grubb Knight Frank as West Coast president of the NGKF Capital Markets group.

Shannon joins the firm from CBRE Group Inc., where he was vice chairman and managing director of the Institutional Properties Group. He managed a team of 16 individuals, 14 of whom are joining him at NGKF’s El Segundo office.

“NGKF is by far the fastest growing capital markets platform of the major brokerages,” said Shannon. “The opportunity to lead and be a major part of that growth in the Western United States was very exciting for our team.”

Staff reporter Hannah Miet can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 228.

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