RobertDouglas Advises Geolo Capital And JW Capital Partners On The Forward-sale Of The Thompson Washington, D.C. To Union Investment
RobertDouglas announced today that it advised a joint-venture between Geolo Capital and JW Capital Partners in arranging the forward-sale of the Thompson Washington, D.C., a luxury hotel being developed in the Capitol Riverfront district of Washington, D.C. Union Investment, a German institutional fund manager, will acquire the hotel for $120 million upon completion, which is expected in early 2020.
Capitol Riverfront is Washington, D.C.’s fastest-growing neighborhood and one of the most exciting urban redevelopment projects in the country. Capitol Riverfront is home to the 41,000-seat Nationals Park baseball stadium, and will ultimately feature 15 million square feet of office space, 12,000 residential units, and more than one million square feet of retail, making it one of Washington D.C.’s most densely populated submarkets. The Thompson Washington, D.C. will serve as an anchor for the neighborhood and will offer 225 high-end guestrooms – including 38 suites – three distinct food and beverage outlets, including a signature restaurant and an indoor/outdoor rooftop bar, and 8,500 square feet of function space.
“Washington, D.C. is one of the most sought-after lodging investment markets in the country, thanks to its attractive supply-demand fundamentals and long-term track record of consistent growth,” commented Evan Hurd, Managing Director at RobertDouglas. “That, combined with the strength of the sponsorship team and business plan, resulted in a high degree of interest from a diverse group of well-qualified investors. Ultimately, the sale-leaseback structure proposed by Union Investment resulted in the best execution for our client.”
“We have witnessed a surge of European capital seeking high-quality hotels here in the United States,” remarked David Smith, a director at RobertDouglas. “Institutional European investors like Union Investment typically seek to structure transactions via the sale-leaseback model, which is commonplace in most European markets, but still relatively unique in North America. So long as yields on high-quality projects like this continue to offer a meaningful premium to comparable assets in core European markets, we expect this trend to continue.”