Orlando Ritz Carlton, JW Marriott reportedly sold for nearly $900M

The Grande Lakes Orlando Resort, one of the most luxurious hotel complexes in Central Florida. has been sold to an investment group for a reported amount of nearly $900 million just four years after a hedge fund bought it.

The sale of the resort, which includes both a 582-room Ritz Carlton and a 998-room JW Marriott, means even more renovations are on the way, its new owners said.

The purchasing group includes Fort Worth, Texas-based Trinity Real Estate Investments and New York’s Elliott Management Corporation.

The 409-acre complex, which opened in 2003, includes a Greg Norman-designed, 18-hole golf course, along with 15 restaurants and a full-service spa.

In a news release, the management group cited Central Florida’s growing tourism sector — which last year welcomed a record 72 million visitors — as a reason the resort is “well positioned” to continue to grow.

Industry trackers say the transaction represents a longterm play.

“They are not looking at, ‘Will we put heads in beds tomorrow?’” UCF tourism professor Deborah Breiter Terry said. “They know they are going to. They are looking more at 2020.”

To help make that happen, the investment group said it would totally renovate both hotels.

“By executing our business plan and deploying strategic capital to elevate and activate the resort experience for both families and group travelers alike, we intend for Grande Lakes to be recognized as a destination unto itself,” Trinity managing partner Sean Hehir said in a release.

Blackstone Group, which bought the hotels along with a Scottsdale, Ariz., property for $1.3 billion in 2015, engineered the sale after pouring $53 million into renovations during the past four years.

The transaction is pretty typical in the luxury hotel industry, said Robert Vrchota, managing director of Fitch Ratings’ U.S. Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities group.

“That’s the plan of an entity like [Blackstone]: come in, spend the money, get the property into a strong position and then sell it and look to invest elsewhere,” Vrchota said.

In a fast-expanding Central Florida market, The Ritz Carlton at Grande Lakes is the only Orlando hotel to receive at least four stars from Forbes Travel Guide on its 60-year-old five-star scale.

Nationally, the luxury hotel sector has seen consistent growth during the past several years.

“Luxury hotels are at peak occupancy levels,” said Ali Hoyt, senior director of consulting and analytics for the industry tracker STR. “The segment is definitely at a peak operating level, which is what we are seeing across the industry at this point.”