The Owner of This Luxe Palm Beach Hotel Wants to Sell—for $1 Million a Room

Hotels in the Palm Beach area are apparently a hot commodity.

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The Ben hotel, in West Palm Beach, Florida, may soon be sold for an impressive $1 million per room, Bloomberg reported recently. Wheelock Street Capital, the property owner, has been in talks with potential buyers, with the 208-key hotel valued at some $208 million, people with knowledge of the discussions told the outlet. Wheelock Street is working with the adviser CBRE Group.

The Ben is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection of hotels, a group that includes independent upscale and luxury properties around the world. Billed as downtown West Palm Beach’s first waterfront hotel, the Ben opened in 2020 and was acquired by Wheelock Street in 2021, Bloomberg noted. The property was the firm’s first hotel purchase.

“The property’s institutional quality, A+ location along the coveted Intracoastal, and irreplaceable, lifestyle waterfront nature in a growing South Florida market make this investment another ideal match with our current acquisition criteria,” Tim Hodes, a Wheelock Street principal, said at the time. “Located at the crossroads of the work-live-play epicenter of West Palm Beach, the property is set to benefit from continued leisure and rapidly accelerating corporate group demand.”

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A representative for Wheelock Street didn’t return Bloomberg’s request for comment, and a CBRE spokesperson declined to comment, so there aren’t currently more details about the potential sale. But the Palm Beach area has become rather lucrative for hoteliers, it seems: Brookfield Asset Management is set to offload the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens for $425 million.

And just this summer, billionaire Larry Ellison took over the renowned Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan, Florida. The five-star resort has been around since the 1950s, and Ellison plans to refresh the property for the 21st century. It’s unclear, though, how much Ellison bought the resort for from its former owners, the Lewis family.

The Ben, then, is just the latest hotel to potentially change hands in the near-term future. Bloomberg didn’t say who the interested buyers are, but it sounds like several people want to get into the Florida hospitality game, which has benefited lately from an influx of people moving to the state for both work and pleasure.

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