Dealmaker: Sonnenblick-Eichner Secures $50M for Seattle Hotel

Sonnenblick-Eichner Co., Beverly Hills, Calif., arranged $50 million of interim first mortgage financing to refinance Hotel Theodore in downtown Seattle.

The 153-room full-service boutique hotel occupies the corner of 7th Avenue and Pine Street, one block west of the Washington State Convention Center and six blocks from Pike Place Market.

The floating-rate loan was sized to a debt yield of less than 6 percent and priced at a spread in the mid-300s over LIBOR. Loan proceeds refinanced the existing acquisition and renovation loan as well as returned equity to borrower Provenance Hotels, Portland, Ore.

The financing surpassed $326,000 per key.

Provenance completed an extensive $32 million renovation in November that included updating guestrooms, bathrooms, meeting rooms, public spaces and building out of the ground floor restaurant space. Hotel amenities include upscale restaurant and bar Rider, a coffee shop, 4,200 square feet of meeting space and a fitness center.

“Given the excellent sponsorship and location, and that Seattle is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic gateway cities in the U.S., we had 14 competitive loan quotes from institutional lenders,” said Sonnenblick-Eichner Principal Elliot Eichner.

Company Principal Patrick Brown noted the new loan refinanced an existing financing also arranged by Sonnenblick-Eichner.

The 20-story Art Deco tower was the tallest hotel in the city when it opened as the Roosevelt Hotel in 1929.