Burlington Hotel for sale for 75m
The Burlington Hotel in Dublin 4 is on the market with a guide price of between 65m and 75m.
The 4 star hotel, which has 501 bedrooms and extensive conferencing facilities on 3.9 acres of land, is being sold through CBRE Hotels on behalf of receiver Paul McCann of Grant Thornton.
In 2007, property developer Bernard McNamara bought the hotel for €288m. McNamara had planned to demolish the building in favour of a new office and commercial development.
According to CBRE Hotels, the Burlington is by far Dublin’s largest hotel and the “sale represents a rare and unique opportunity to acquire a substantial unbranded freehold property in the heart of Ireland’s capital city”.
CBRE said the recovery of the Dublin hotel market has been “quite remarkable” and that the performance of the capital’s hotels has been amongst the best in Europe for almost two years now. It said figures from Smith Travel Research (STR Global) show that bedroom occupancy in Dublin has consistently been in positive territory since September 2010 and that revenue per available room has shown positive growth for each of the last 23 consecutive months, up to and including July 2012.
According to CBRE, the Burlington Hotel currently ranks as the most profitable hotel in Ireland. “The hotel has benefited from substantial capital expenditure since reopening in May 2008 and recently completed a major upgrade of its fire and safety facilities at a cost of approximately €1.2m. With further strategic investment the Burlington Hotel has the potential to significantly grow its revenues and profitability into the future.”
“We expect exceptional interest in this quality asset with much of this to come from international buyers,” said Paul Collins of CBRE Hotels.
“The hotel, with its 501 bedrooms and suites, superb conference and banqueting facilities, its prime location and very strong profitability, should appeal to many international hotel investors and the opportunity to acquire Ireland’s most successful and best known hotel, is undoubtedly going to generate strong worldwide interest”.
Collins said that this weekend alone the hotel will accommodate almost 1,000 overnight guests for the US College Football game between Notre Dame and Navy.
“The Burlington Hotel currently achieves a substantial level of business without the benefit of an international brand name over its door and its sale offers savvy hotel investors an outstanding commercial opportunity to flag Dublin city centre’s largest hotel with an international brand.”