MIAMI- The Bahia Mar Resort and Yachting Center in Fort Lauderdale has been sold to a group of investors including Rahn Properties and Blockbuster Entertainment Chairman Wayne Huizenga.
The deal represents the third high-profile hotel acquisition in Fort Lauderdale for Rahn Properties and Huizenga in recent years. Rahn and Huizenga also hold ownership stakes in Pier 66 Crowne Plaza Resort and the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort.
Peter H. Roberts, a principal of Rahn Properties, declined to disclose the sale price but said investors plan to spend several million dollars to renovate the 298-room hotel and 350-slip marina.
Work should begin shortly on the 45-year-old landmark, he said. “Our plans are to do some substantial upgrades,” Roberts said. “The property needs a lot of renovation work.”
Roberts said the resort also will be renamed the Radisson Bahia Mar Resort to reflect its new affiliation with the Radisson chain of hotels. Rahn Properties will operate the resort.
The new owners plan to renovate the resort’s rooms, main lobby and docks. A new restaurant, market and deli also will be built, Roberts said. The resort will remain open during renovations, he said.
TRIBAL CENTER
GREEN BAY, Wis.-The Oneida Tribe wants to lease 28 acres of county-owned land next to its casino to develop a multimillion-dollar shopping and entertainment center.
It’s the second project involving a new shopping center near the airport that the tribe has unveiled recently. The two projects could create up to 2,000 jobs and generate more than $1 million in property taxes a year, the tribe said.
Ernest Stevens Sr., the tribe’s development director, told the Brown County Planning, Development and Transportation Committee that plans for the 28-acre site call for a 100,000 square-foot department store, a 10-screen cinema, dinner theater, children’s activity center and other shops.
The 489,000-square-foot complex-more than four times the size of the tribe’s casino-would be connected by a walkway to the casino and a hotel that the tribe owns. The tribe and county have been negotiating a lease for the site for nearly two years.
Just because a plan has been proposed does not mean a deal involving the land will be struck overnight, said county lawyer Ken Bukowski. Leasing airport land to the tribe would require special language in the documents, particularly on the issue of property taxes, he said.
Chicago architect and planning consultant Gerald Estes said the shops envisioned for the tribal projects would compete more with the Fox River Mall in Appleton than with Green Bay area malls.
Consultants who prepared a marketing study were “very surprised with the lack of commercial facilities that are designed for something other than the traditional blue-collar community of Green Bay,” Estes said. “It documents very well there are other segments of the market that are leaving town.”
GARMENT ALTERATIONS
PHILADELPHIA-Work has begun to convert a 16-story garment factory near the Convention Center into a hotel and parking garage, developer Michael Grasso said. The project, known as the China Gate Hotel, will feature a Chinese-style front in keeping with nearby Chinatown.
Grasso said crews had already begun interior demolition and have started taking debris out of the building, which dates from the 1930s. He said construction of the garage would begin next month and work could begin on the hotel by September if some city financing can be obtained.
After its planned opening in 1995, the hotel will have 200 parking spaces and 210 rooms and suites. A 6,000-square-foot restaurant, a cocktail lounge, a rooftop garden and 20,000 square feet of meeting rooms also are planned.
Conveca Associates, a partnership of Grasso and lawyer Laurence Berk, has tentatively decided to have Days Inn run the hotel, but Grasso said they may opt for a more upscale operator.
DALLAS DEAL
DALLAS-One of the biggest undeveloped properties along the Dallas North Tollway has been purchased by a developer who plans to build homes, apartments and a shopping center.
Pacific United Development Corp., a Texas company set up by Taiwanese investors, purchased the tract at the northwest corner of the tollway and Frankford Road, across from AmWest Savings. The vacant land is in the city of Dallas and is zoned for a combination of high-rise commercial and residential construction.
Tony Toro, who heads one of the development firms working on the project, said the owners plan to rezone the land for low- and midrise construction.
The developers expect to create about 200 single-family lots on the west side of the property, plus apartment building sites and a large shopping center on the tollway frontage.
Construction is to start late this year or in early 1995, depending on the rezoning process. Pacific United Development was one of more than a dozen bidders that tried to acquire the tollway site. No purchase price was disclosed, but area brokers say the tract cost more than $9.5 million.
$100 MILLION BUY
HOUSTON-Hines Interests Limited Partnership, together with General Motors Pension Plans, has purchased four office buildings and 12 acres of land in the Greenspoint Plaza project in north Houston.
The purchase price was not disclosed, but realty sources said it exceeded $100 million. That would make it Houston’s biggest real estate sale in the city in the 1990s. The four office buildings and two retail centers total over 1.3 million square feet of space.
The sellers were Friendswood Development and Exxon Annuity Trust. The buildings, located at Interstate 45 and the Sam Houston Parkway, were developed by Friendswood between 1978 and 1989. Land included in the purchase could someday be the site of a new Hines office tower.
MAKING MORE MUSIC
ST. LOUIS-Two of the biggest names in southwest Missouri are joining to bring a convention center to fast-growing Branson. Silver Dollar City Inc. and John Q. Hammons Hotels said that they had formed a joint venture to build a $22 million convention center and hotel in the Ozarks music mecca.
The complex, to be called Grand Mansion, is expected to include a 350- room hotel and a convention center that will be even bigger than Hammons’ University Plaza complex in Springfield.
Grand Mansion would offer 50,000 square feet of meeting space. Grand Mansion’s main ballroom would be bigger than a football field, big enough to handle 4,000 people, or 3,000 for a sit-down dinner.
