Sheraton at airport gets new owner
Plans include $4.5M upgrades to 180,000-square-foot hotel
The Sheraton ABQ Airport Hotel on Yale SE has found a new owner.
The 276-room hotel, which went up for auction in late April, has been purchased by Tony Sherman, CEO of Terrapin Investments, an Aspen, Colo.-based real-estate investment group.
Sherman purchased the 180,000-square-foot hotel for $10.5 million and will close on the property on Aug. 9.
“I saw it as a great opportunity because (the Sheraton) is on an upward trend,” Sherman said.
The Bernalillo County Assessor’s Office valued the 10-acre Sheraton property at nearly $7.9 million. The hotel is the only one located on airport property and has a 55-year ground lease with the city.
The Sheraton underwent a $14 million renovation in 2010, and Sherman plans to put another $4.5 million into the property. “We are going to update everything that the guest sees, from the hallways to the dining area, to the rooms,” he said.
Sherman said he has had his eye on the property “for some time.” It went into foreclosure in 2008, but Sherman said it wasn’t profitable at that time.
When the owners decided to sell it, Sherman checked again and found the hotel brings in nearly a million dollars in profit annually and decided “the time was right.”
This isn’t Terrapin’s first Albuquerque venture. Sherman purchased two Hampton Inns in 2007, at 2300 Carlisle NE and 1300 Woodward SE. After riding out the recession, he decided to begin investing in Albuquerque once again.
“With Facebook moving in (to Los Lunas) and the Innovate program in Downtown, I think Albuquerque should start growing at a faster rate,” Sherman said.