InSite Group buys Holiday Inn & Suites hotel across from Universal Orlando for $46.2M

Fort Lauderdale-based InSite Group just paid $46.2 million for a Holiday Inn & Suites hotel across from Universal Orlando.

AVR Realty Company sold the 390-key hotel at 5905 S. Kirkman Rd. for a little more than about $118,460 per room.

The trade takes place at a time when Central Florida is experiencing a decline in hotel sales. Just 29 Orlando area hotels traded hands in 2019.

Last summer, players in the hospitality industry spoke to GrowthSpotter about a slow down in hotel sales, due in part to costly asking prices, a high amount of hotels in the pipeline and institutional investors wanting to hold onto assets longer in hindsight of occupancy rates increasing.

This week, however, the Holiday Inn & Suites Across From Universal Orlando hotel drew in the likes of InSite Group, which recently sold the 391-room Coco Key Hotel and Water Resort on I-Drive for $21 million last month.

Industry insiders say drivers such as Orlando International Airport’s expansion, the $600 million Orange County Convention Center renovation and expansion, and the new Universal theme park will only continue to promote hotel development, but at the same time, keep occupancy strong.

AVR Realty Company bought the hotel on Kirkman Road in 1997 for about $12.6 million. The company is a real estate investment and development firm based in Yonkers, New York.

Gregory Rumpel and Zayli Rodriguez of JLL helped broker the deal.

The hotel features an outdoor heated pool with a large patio area and separate children’s pool, a 24-hour fitness center, business center, an onsite TGI Friday’s restaurant and 13,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

Location wise, the property benefits from its proximity to the Orange County Convention Center and Universal Orlando Resort.

A number of entertainment complexes like Topgolf and Andretti Karting have recently opened not far away. Traveling north on I-4 from the hotel is Orlando’s Mall at Millenia, and to its south is Unicorp National Developments’ 20-acre ICON Park.

The hotel sits along Kirkman Road, which is undergoing an extension that was voted by Orange County Commissioners in December to stretch 1.7 miles from Sand Lake Road to Universal Boulevard, next to Universal Orlando’s planned Epic Universe theme park.

The Kirkman Road extension is slated to cost about $250 million to just over $315 million to build.

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at arabines@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-5427, or tweet me at @amanda_rabines. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.