Apple Hospitality REIT has acquired the AC Hotel by Marriott Louisville (Ken.) Downtown for $51 million, or approximately $327,000 per key, and the AC Hotel by Marriott Pittsburgh Downtown for $34 million, or approximately $254,000 per key.
“We are pleased to enhance our portfolio with these attractive acquisitions that highlight the strength of our relationships with best-in-class hotel owner-operators and our ability to drive value in a highly competitive marketplace,” said Nelson Knight, president, real estate and investments at Apple Hospitality. “These thoughtfully designed hotels ... are well positioned within their markets to benefit from a variety of business and leisure demand generators. We continue to actively explore additional opportunities, like these, that will optimize our portfolio in ways that will elevate our future performance and maximize long-term value for our shareholders.”
The 156-room AC Hotel Louisville Downtown opened in April 2018 and is located within the East Market District, also known as NuLu for New Louisville. The hotel benefits from a variety of leisure, academic and sports-related demand generators given its proximity to the KFC Yum! Center, the University of Louisville and the Kentucky International Convention Center. In addition, numerous large companies and industries related to shipping and logistics, food and beverage, automobile manufacturing, health care and health insurance are located in Louisville and drive business-related travel to the area. Recent Louisville hotel performance has recovered to prepandemic levels. According to data provided by STR for the month of September, revenue per available room for the Louisville central business district submarket improved approximately 2 percent compared to September 2019. RevPAR for the hotel improved approximately 8 percent.
The 134-room AC Hotel Pittsburgh Downtown opened in July 2018 and is adjacent to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The hotel also is close to PPG Paints Arena, Acrisure Stadium and PNC Park. In addition to leisure demand generators, the hotel benefits from a variety of corporate and academic demand driven by technology, robotics, financial services, manufacturing, automobile and health care companies located in the area as well as the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. In recent months, Pittsburgh has seen hotel performance exceed prepandemic levels, and according to data provided by STR for the month of September, RevPAR for the Pittsburgh CBD submarket improved approximately 17 percent compared to September 2019. RevPAR for the hotel improved approximately 36 percent.
The Apple Hospitality portfolio now comprises 220 hotels with 28,983 guestrooms throughout 37 states.