Oct. 22–DURHAM — Following a foreclosure and sale of the property earlier this year, the Southpoint Hotel off of Renaissance Parkway near The Streets at Southpoint went through a name and ownership change.
Now the hotel has been sold again, and it’s expected to undergo another change. It’s planned to open as Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel, said Kirk Bradley, a developer and an investor who said he partnered in the hotel’s purchase with the Raleigh-based hotel operator Summit Hospitality Group.
Previously, the hotel, which is on Leonardo Drive, operated as a Four Points by Sheraton. According to court documents, it was sold in a foreclosure sale in February, and is now known as the Southpoint Hotel.
According to the court documents, the hotel secured a bank loan made to the hotel’s former manager, Mary K. Simpson, in 2006.
In the sale in February, a limited liability company connected to an Atlanta-based hotel company bought the building for $6.7 million. Officials at that company could not be reached for comment for this story Tuesday.
Simpson said the recession hurt the hotel’s business. Occupancy rates and average hotel rates were down across several years. But she said business is starting to come back, and she expects the hotel to be successful.
“I think there’s a great future for that hotel, or I would never have built it,” she said. “I think it has a huge opportunity to be successful because it has a very good location, the brand that is going to be there is a strong (brand),” she also said.
Nina Herrera-Davila, a spokeswoman for Marriott International, the hospitality company that owns the Fairfield Inn & Suites brand, said in an email that the conversion of the hotel into a Fairfield Inn & Suites is on the books. She said the hotel is expected in the end of next year under the brand name.
In September, the hotel was purchased by the limited liability company Leonardo Hotel One for $7.25 million, according to property records.
In state business filings, the company Leonardo Hotel One has the same address as Summit Hospitality Group. A call made to the company was not returned by deadline, however.
Bradley said he partnered with Raleigh-based Summit to buy the hotel in September. He said he’s also an investor with Summit on the nearby Hilton Garden Inn, what’s now known as the Southpoint Hotel, as well as a new hotel that’s under construction.
Bradley is president of Lee-Moore Capital Co., which is behind the Westpoint at 751, a development across N.C. 751 from the hotel property.
Westpoint at 751 is home to an Aldi grocery store, a Bonefish Grill restaurant, and Town Hall Burger and Beer. Bradley said a hotel is also under construction there that will be a Hyatt Place.
