Downtown Hilton to be sold for around $40 million, management says

The sale of the historic Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center is expected to close by the end of the week. So says Kevin Gallagher, senior vice president of Prism Hotels & Resorts, which took over management of the downtown property earlier this year and will continue to run it in partnership with the new owner, RockBridge Capital, a Columbus, Ohio, hotel investment firm. RockBridge is acquiring the hotel from Commercial Properties Realty Trust, the for-profit arm of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, for around $40 million, Gallagher confirms. That’s considerably less than the $70 million Commercial Properties spent restoring the hotel several years ago, but Gallagher says all parties are satisfied that the sale price is fair and that the deal is a good one. “You never look back in commercial real estate because it makes you crazy,” says Gallagher. “What was a value five years ago is not anymore. It’s the new normal, but as investors we prefer to characterize it as not a drop in value but, simply, a new value.” Guests and visitors to the hotel won’t notice any changes there under the new ownership, Gallagher says. “Most hotels transact and nobody knows,” he says. “As an industry we have found the distractions don’t benefit anybody.” A spokesman for BRAF declined to comment “on this potential transaction.” In late May, a BRAF spokesman told Daily Report Commercial Properties never intended to own the historic hotel for very long. Read that story here. —Stephanie Riegel