St. Regis Aspen hotel sold

The 179-room, luxury St. Regis Aspen hotel has been sold for $70 million, seller Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. said Wednesday.

The purchase price amounts to $391,000 per room, but the deal is reportedly worth a total of $100 million because the new owner plans a major renovation expected to cost $30 million.

The buyer is 315 Dean Associates Inc., a company represented by the OptAsia Capital Co. Ltd. boutique investment bank of Bangkok. The Thai company specializes in hotel and other types of real estate deals.

The hotel is located at the base of Aspen Mountain, at 315 E. Dean St. Rates at the St. Regis recently ranged from $249 to $1,678 per night, averaging $870 a night, according to TripAdvisor.com.

Starwood (NYSE: HOT) of New York will continue to manage the hotel, via a 50-year management agreement, according to the company. The hotel will remain a St. Regis.

The hotel company had the hotel on the market for about two years, according to The Aspen Times newspaper.

The St. Regis Aspen was built in 1992, and originally was a 257-room Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The property’s first owner was Sheik Abdul Aziz Bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, a Saudi Arabian businessman, and it was managed by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. LLC. The Aspen property was plagued by lawsuits by investors during its early days, according to Ritz.

Al Ibrahim and Ritz had a falling out in 1997, and in August of that year, Ritz terminated its management agreements at four of the sheik’s hotels it operated — including the Aspen property.

ITT Sheraton Corp. quickly took over management of the Aspen property, as well as three other former Ritzes.

In early 1998, Starwood bought the Aspen hotel as part of its $14.3 billion acquisition of ITT Sheraton. Starwood acted as a “white knight” in the deal, preventing a hostile takeover of ITT by what’s now Hilton Worldwide.

Under Starwood, the former Aspen Ritz became a St. Regis.

In the early 2000s, Starwood converted 98 rooms in the hotel’s east wing to 25 fractional-ownership suites.

Reported by:  Denver Business Journal