“Westin San Francisco hotel put up for auction” reads the headline in today’s Chronicle detailing the possible impending sale of the Union Square-area hotel. But a local blog known for having the inside scoop disputes this reporting. It’s a hotel auction blog fight!
According to the Chron’s Andrew S. Ross (a business columnist not to be confused with the Andrew Ross of Matier and Ross fame), a “Notice of Public Sale” appeared in Wednesday’s Chronicle announcing an auction of the ‘principal asset’ belonging to Argent Hotel Realty on April 15.” That principal asset, says Ross, is the Westin San Francisco, a hotel located at 50 3rd Street, just shy of Market.
While Ross couldn’t confirm details of the auction with the hotel’s press office, the hotel’s owners, or the company to which it it “reportedly owes $22 million,” local real estate blog Socketsite calls shenanigans, with site editor Adam Koval saying “we can confirm the Westin’s $22,000,000 in Senior Mezzanine Debt which had been making waves has been paid in full and no auction is forthcoming.”
Was the kind of unremarkable to locals (let’s face it, it’s sadly glass elevator free, unlike its cousin, the St. Francis) hotel that was purchased by its current owners $178 million, in Ross’s words “caught with their financial pants down when the Great Recession hit” or have they dug themselves out of debt, as Koval reports? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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