CBRE Arranges Purchase Financing for Hotel Indigo

HOUSTON– , CBRE has arranged financing for the purchase of the Hotel Indigo Houston at the Galleria, a 131-key hotel located in Houston’s Uptown submarket. The financing was on behalf of the buyer Driftwood Capital, a Miami-based commercial real estate firm.

The Hotel Indigo, built in 2001 and renovated in 2009, is located at 5160 Hidalgo Street, between Sage Road and the Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park.

Olga Lepow and Mark Owens with CBRE’s Capital Markets Debt & Structured Finance team in Houston and New York, secured a bridge loan through Stone Beach Capital.

“The tourism and business sector demand drivers of this cosmopolitan neighborhood will allow us to realize considerable investment gains while providing a newly renovated and modern hotel to the community,” said Carlos J. Rodriguez Sr., CEO of Driftwood Capital.

“Thanks to the asset’s excellent location, strength of sponsorship as well as Driftwood’s management expertise, we were able to secure favorable loan terms,” said Lepow. “This is a great outcome for Driftwood Capital to position the asset for long-term success.”

The Hotel Indigo at the Galleria is one of seven hotel properties that Driftwood Capital owns or manages in the Houston area.

Hotels Rebounded From the Covid Downturn

The Houston hotel market has been rebounding from the Covid nightmare which crushed the hotel business in the spring of 2020. In April of 2020, the Houston hotel occupancy rate was 23.9 percent, compared to 63.8 percent in April 2019, as stated by the STR hotel research firm.

In the spring of 2020 as Covid emptied hotel rooms at an alarming rate, STR said Houston’s average daily room rate was down 42.6 percent to $59.31. RevPAR (revenue per available room) was only $14.15, down 79.2 percent from in 2019. From those lows, the only way to go was up.