Downtown Hilton deal set at $40 million

Advocate staff file photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING -- The Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center, left, is seen from the observation deck of the State Capitol. Dallas-based Prism Hotels negotiated a $40 million deal on the hotel.

A $40 million sale of the downtown Hilton hotel to Prism Hotels & Resorts was scheduled to close Wednesday.

Prism, based in Dallas, has been managing the hotel since May as it looked into whether to buy the property from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s Commercial Properties Realty Trust.

Commercial Properties spokesman Mukul Verma said the cost of converting the derelict former Capitol House hotel on Lafayette Street into the Hilton was $62 million.

The one-time state and federal historic tax credits and the ongoing tax increment financing deal meant Commercial Properties “pretty much broke even on the hotel,” Verma said, though he did not give specific figures.

Verma said redeveloping the property, which was an eyesore for decades, was an important part of downtown’s resurgence. Verma pointed out there were no hotels downtown when Plan Baton Rouge set out to revitalize downtown in the late 1990s, and now there are two others open and another one — the Hampton Inn & Suites — under way.

Prism, which could not be reached for comment, was part of the redevelopment team headed by Commercial Properties and managed the hotel briefly after it opened in 2006.

Verma said selling the hotel allows Commercial Properties to focus on its core business of shopping centers.

The company recently announced Galatoire’s restaurant and Trader Joe’s will be built at Acadian Village Shopping Center at Perkins Road and Acadian Thruway.

Comments

1) Comment by phil - 05/09/2012

OK so how does all of this fit in with the recent ordinance by the metro council and the cooperative endeavor agreement that was recently on the metro-council agenda. This is a TIF area and I think taxpayers should be told exactly how much profit, if any, was made on this sale. Taxpayers should not have to pay for the expenses of renovating etc a hotel and then the owner sales it for a large profit. Possibly this is not the case here, but how about releasing a detailed itemized accounting of where all of the tax money went to and how much profit was made on the sale, and not just allow someone to say “pretty much broke even on the hotel".