The Tri-Cities saw some major hotel sales in July when Pebblebrook Hotel Trust sold the Hotel Amarano Burbank for $72.9 million, after purchasing the property only mere months earlier for less than $500,000, yielding a return on investment of 14,580 percent.
According to CoStar, Nimes Capital purchased the four-story, 132-room hotel, located at 322 N. Pass Ave. in Burbank.
The hotel previously sold in November 2018 as part of a 40-property portfolio. Real estate investment trust Pebblebrook, part of Bethesda, MD.-based LaSalle Hotel Properties, which had purchased it for $497,751 as part of the portfolio, sold the individual property to Nimes.
At $72.9 million, the sales price calculates to $552,273 per room, or more than what Pebblebrook paid for the entire hotel. The 60,863-square-foot building was erected in 2001.
According to CoStar Group, the room rates range from $310 for a deluxe room to the Magnolia suite for $745 per night.
Located in the heart of the Media District in Downtown Burbank, the hotel opened in 2002 with 99 rooms, but a decade later underwent renovation and expansion, completed in 2012, in which 32 guestrooms and suites were added to the room inventory. The boutique hotel also includes two food and beverage outlets — the Library Lounge and the Garden Room — as well as 1,400 square feet of conference space.
Access to entertainment
Strategic location appears a major factor in the hotel’s selling price. Burbank’s entertainment industry places movie studios Walt Disney Co., Comcast Corp.-owned NBCUniversal and AT&T Inc.-owned Warner Bros. Entertainment nearby. In addition, a plethora of post-production houses, tech companies and music labels round out the local economy. Not to mention that Burbank attracted a record 50 million tourists last year, according to the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust is a publicly traded real estate investment trust. The largest owner of urban and resort lifestyle hotels in the United States, Pebblebrook owns 60 hotels, representing some 14,500 guest rooms, across 16 urban and resort markets, primarily on the West Coast.
In addition to the Hotel Amarano purchase, the company in July announced that it is bringing in Viceroy Hotels & Resorts as a third-party operator of two of Pebblebrook’s upscale Washington, D.C. hotels. One is the 178-key Mason & Rook Hotel, following the completion of a comprehensive renovation by early 2020, when it will be renamed Viceroy Hotel Washington D.C. The other is the 193-suite Donovan Hotel, to be redeveloped and relaunched as part of the Unofficial Z Collection in 2020.
