An East Coast real estate investment firm has acquired the Westin Westminster and intends to invest in updates to the property over the next several months.
Wheelock Street Capital bought the 370-room hotel at 10600 Westminster Blvd. from Amstar, which completed numerous guest room, health club and common-area upgrades over the course of its hold period. The price wasn’t released, but Jefferson County records show the hotel sold for $70 million, or $189,189 per key.
“Amstar had done a great job maintaining the property,” said Tim Hodes, a principal at Wheelock Street Capital. “We plan to invest a fair amount of capital to upgrade the lobby, restaurant space and some of the meeting space. Once we’re done renovating it in the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll have a pretty fresh, new product to offer the market.”
Built in 2000, the Westin Westminster is a high-profile fixture on the U.S. Highway 36 corridor. The 14-story hotel includes a conference center with more than 39,000 square feet of meeting space and a full-service restaurant, the Kachina Southwestern Grill. The property is situated alongside the Westminster Promenade, which includes a number of restaurants and entertainment venues, including Bar Louie, Dave & Busters, Rock Bottom Brewery and AMC Theatres.
Wheelock Street Capital previously owned Anthem Colorado, a 2,800-unit residential master-planned community in Broomfield, in and is familiar with the Denver-Boulder corridor.
“We have a pretty positive view of the growth occurring in this corridor on the job side. It’s a very tight office market, a lot of residential growth,” said Hodes. Hodes said the Westin “serves a great purpose in the submarket” with its meeting space and first-class hotel brand.
“We saw it as an opportunity to buy a high-quality asset in a growing submarket.”
The company partnered with HEI Hotels & Resorts to manage the property. HEI also manages the Renaissance Las Vegas on Wheelock’s behalf.
Denver-based Amstar originally acquired the Westin off-market in a joint venture with the hotel’s developer, Inland Pacific, and Sage Hospitality. “Amstar is proud to have executed upon an ambitious repositioning plan with Sage that has resulted in a thriving hotel and conference center in our own backyard,” commented Amstar Senior Vice President Brian Cornell.
A team led by JLL International Director John Strauss in Los Angeles represented Amstar in the transaction.
Wheelock Street Capital is a private investment firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Boston. Wheelock was formed in 2008 by Rick Kleeman and Jonathan Paul, veteran real estate private equity investors, each with over 20 years of broad real estate transaction experience. Wheelock has since raised approximately $2 billion in capital commitments and is currently investing its fifth fund and its third multi-investor discretionary opportunity fund. Wheelock’s first two funds were primarily funded by a single private institutional investor.
Wheelock will invest in a broad range of real estate assets throughout the United States. The fund may invest directly or with high-quality joint-venture partners through a variety of capital structures and transaction types, including acquisitions, restructurings and recapitalizations. (https://idigtexas.com/)
