Chicago-based Adventurous Journeys Capital Partners’ Graduate Hotels chain has acquired the Macdonald Randolph Hotel in Oxford, England. This will be the second Graduate Hotels property outside of the United States following July's announcement of the upcoming Graduate Cambridge.
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Renovations on the building will begin in fall 2020, and the 151-room hotel will reopen as the Graduate Oxford, part of the Graduate Hotels collection, in early spring 2021. When it opens, the property will be right in the middle of the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world at 923 years old, as well as close to the Radcliffe Camera and Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. The hotel will undergo interior and exterior renovations that will update all guestrooms, the lobby and common spaces. The company said the hotel’s design would be inspired by “the centuries of University of Oxford history and tradition.”
At the same time, AJ Capital acquired the Rusacks Hotel, from the Macdonald Hotels & Resorts portfolio, in St. Andrews, Scotland.
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Founded by CEO Ben Weprin in 2014, Graduate Hotels currently has 21 open and operating hotels in towns across the U.S., including Athens, Ga.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Berkeley, Calif.; Providence, R.I.; and Seattle, Wash. among others.
An additional 12 properties are under development and slated to open by the end of 2021.