Union Investment has acquired a further hotel property in the US. Opened in 2015, the property is located on King Street in the historical city centre of Charleston, South Carolina, one of the most popular travel destinations in the United States. The property comprises a modern Hyatt House apartment-style hotel, designed for extended-stay guests, and a Hyatt Place hotel, a brand in the premium segment. The two brands offer 304 rooms in total. The vendor of the property is Regent/BN Charleston Holdings LLC. The hotels are leased for 30 years to the operator, the Pyramid Hotel Group. The purchase price is not disclosed. Union Investment is adding the hotel property to the portfolio of its open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Global.
“Having bought two first-class lifestyle hotels in Portland, Oregon and Washington DC at the start of the year, we are continuing our programme of acquiring US hotels. The Hyatt House also marks the first time we have acquired a fully operational apartment hotel. This once again demonstrates our openness to new hotel formats, assuming they offer long-term success,” said Andreas Löcher, head of Investment Management Hospitality at Union Investment Real Estate GmbH. “The combination of the two hotel formats and the location in Charleston meets our high standards. The new acquisition is thus a perfect fit with our high-quality hotel portfolio.” Union Investment now holds six hotel properties in the US and one new-build development project across seven locations, with a total value of more than EUR 1 billion.
Hyatt House accounts for 113 of the rooms in the hotel property. They are designed for extended stays and provide a correspondingly comfortable environment, including a living area with a sofa and an integrated kitchen. Hyatt Place offers 191 rooms, plus around 800 sq m of conference space. The additional facilities, such as a fitness centre, swimming pool, market and rooftop bar, can be used by all hotel guests. The average room size in the hotel property is more than 40 sq m.
In 2017, Charleston was named by Condé Nast Traveller Magazine as the best travel destination for leisure travellers in the US, for the seventh time in a row. A number of companies from the automotive and high-tech sectors, such as Boeing, Mercedes, Volvo and Google, have offices in Charleston, which fuels demand from business travellers. In addition, the city has the fourth-largest container port in the US, and in 2016 Charleston International Airport was expanded to handle up to four million passengers a year.
