Winston Sells Comfort Inn, Buys Wingate Property

RALEIGH, NC— Winston Hotels announced that it has sold the 120-room Comfort Inn Executive Center in Clearwater, FL to a privately held company for $3.4 million. Concurrently, the company, a real estate investment trust (REIT) and owner of limited-service, extended-stay and full-service hotels, announced the purchase of the 102-room Wingate Inn in West Des Moines, IA for $4.0 million through a 50-50 joint venture with Concord Hospitality Enterprises Co. in Cleveland. The joint venture plans to convert the property to a Fairfield Inn & Suites, according to Winston. Concord has been engaged by the joint venture to manage the operations of the hotel.      “These two transactions perfectly exemplify our portfolio positioning strategy,” said Jim Rosenberg, president of Winston. “The sale of the Clearwater property is part of our ongoing plan to prune our portfolio selectively and reinvest the proceeds in more upscale hotels in markets with higher barriers to new competition, where we believe we can generate higher returns over the long-term.      “The West Des Moines property is one of an increasing number of attractively priced hotels for sale that we believe can benefit from aggressive asset management, which often includes renovating, repositioning and rebranding,” Rosenberg continued. He noted that the joint venture purchased the property “at a significant discount to replacement value,” and indicated the conversion from a Wingate Inn to a Fairfield Inns & Suites is expected to be completed during the third quarter of this year. “We are stepping up our efforts to acquire premium limited-service, upscale extended-stay and mid-market full-service hotels, especially those that have turnaround and upside potential,” Rosenberg said. “We believe these segments have performed very well compared to the industry over the past 12 months and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”      Winston Hotels currently owns or is invested in 53 hotels with 7,286 rooms in 15 states.