Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital has reportedly agreed to buy the Marriott City Center hotel in Oakland, Calif., for $143 million or $289,000 per key. The hotel is being sold by a JV between New York's Apollo Global Management and DiNapoli Capital Partners, based in Walnut Creek, Calif.
According to Mingtiandi, Gaw Capital is betting on long-term success for the Bay Area. It recently sold an office building in San Francisco, but also acquired a 228,573-square-foot office block in the city’s Chinatown area.
The Marriott City Center buy comes through Gaw Capital's $315 million US Fund II, and as a source told Mingtiandi, made, in part, because Gaw sees Oakland becoming the "Brooklyn of the Bay Area."
“For Bay Area hotels, there’s a limited supply, it’s hard to build, and the economy is booming,” the source told Mingtiandi.
The acquisition of the Marriott City Center complements Gaw Capital's ownership of the 162-room Courtyard by Marriott that occupies the same block.
Gaw paid a pretty penny for the hotel. The price per key paid is reportedly a more than 40-percent markup from what Apollo and DiNapoli paid for it in 2015 ($80 million).
Gaw has been active in global hospitality having purchased the InterContinental Hotel Hong Kong for $938 million and Singapore's Big Hotel for $144 million.
Last August, it partnered with Chicago developer Shapack Partners on the acquisition of the Public Chicago Hotel for an estimated $60 million.