AJ Capital Partners acquired the Sheraton Iowa City in Iowa City, Iowa, from investment firm Rockbridge. The hotel has a full renovation planned, which will convert the property into a Graduate hotel by 2018. The nine-story, 234-room hotel is located on South Dubuque Street on downtown Iowa City's Ped Mall, near the University of Iowa.
Located one block from the University of Iowa's campus, the hotel has an indoor walkway open to the public connecting it to the city's Pedestrian Mall. The hotel has more than 13,000 square feet of meeting and event space, a fitness center, indoor pool and restaurant.
"It is with great pleasure that we announce the acquisition of the Sheraton Iowa City," Tim Franzen, president of Graduate Hotels, said in a statement. "This acquisition exemplifies our strategy of investing in ideally-located assets in multi-dimensional university-anchored markets. Our location on the Ped Mall, the focal point of downtown Iowa City, will offer locals, students and visitors direct access to the hotel. We look forward to expanding our footprint within the Big Ten Conference with Graduate Iowa City's opening next year."
The property's planned renovation will see changes to all guestrooms, its restaurant, pool, meeting and event spaces and lobby.
Graduate Hotels has properties in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Athens, Ga.; Berkeley, Calif.; Charlottesville, Va.; Lincoln, Neb.; Madison, Wis.; Oxford, Miss.; Richmond, Va.; and Tempe, Ariz. Locations in Bloomington, Ind.; Minneapolis; Seattle; and New York City's Roosevelt Island as part of the Cornell Tech campus are stated to open throughout 2018 and 2019.