A York-area hotel is going up for sale at at time when hotels in general are struggling to recover from the economic blow of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Bidding is scheduled to open Jan. 31 in an auction for the 129-room Comfort Inn & Suites York, which is off Interstate 83 at 2250 N. George St. in Manchester Township.
- The minimum bid is $1.6 million, according to a listing on the Ten-X auction platform.
- The three-day sale is being overseen by HREC Investment Advisors, the same specialty real estate firm that helped auction off the former Radisson Hotel Harrisburg in Cumberland County.
- “The acquisition of the Comfort Inn & Suites York, PA is an attractive opportunity to acquire an investment grade asset at a discount to replacement cost with upside potential in improving margins, generating higher returns,” reads a description on Ten-X.
Why is this happening: It’s unclear, though the Ten-X site indicates the four-story hotel is in receivership. Receivers generally take over hotels when they encounter financial trouble.
- Mark Von Dwingelo, an HREC broker, declined to comment.
- Efforts to speak to a manager at the hotel were unsuccessful.
- The hotel is listed on the website of hotel management company GF Hotels & Resorts. But efforts to reach that company also were unsuccessful.
- An affiliate of Philadelphia-based GF Hotels took over management of the Radisson as a receiver after the former owners defaulted on a loan from M&T Bank.
- Another clue comes from a 2015 press release from a lender called Aries Capital.
- Aries said then that it loaned $6.1 million to refinence the hotel, The borrower was listed as Simraj Hospitality Management, which is based in Mechanicsburg
- An executive for Simraj confirmed the hotel is in receivership but declined to comment further.
- Efforts to reach Aries, which is based in Chicago, were not successful.
The bottom line: Hotels were slammed by the Covid-19 pandemic, with occupancy rates nationwide plunging into the 20s, according to industry research firm STR.
- Occupancy rebounded in the first half of 2021 to near 70%, but it fell through the second half of the year, according to STR.
- For the week of Jan. 9 to 15, occupancy was 48.3%, compared to 65.1% for the comparable week in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, STR said.
–by Joel Berg, editor of biznewsPA
