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MARK ALBRIGHTThe beach hotel and seven others were bought by a Boston group. The flagship will be remodeled.
CLEARWATER - Eight Adam's Mark Hotels, including the chain's 217-room landmark resort on Clearwater Beach, have been sold for $236-million to a new ownership group.
The new owners are Pyramid Advisory Group of Boston and a Morgan Stanley real estate investment fund that plans to spend an undisclosed amount remodeling the three-star property in Clearwater.
There is no plan to change staff, but the name will change. The new owners plan to sign up the big beach hotel with another national hotel brand within six months. The most common flags in the Pyramid portfolio of 38 properties are Marriott and Doubletree.
Pyramid is the same group that purchased a 604-room Adam's Mark in Houston last year. That hotel is being remodeled before being re-flagged as the Houston Marriott Westchase Hotel.
Local tourist industry leaders have been hoping new owners would give a facelift, and perhaps a prestigious brand, to the property that has been an Adam's Mark since 1977. Big national chains such as Hyatt, Marriott and Westin are missing or underrepresented on the Pinellas beach.
"It's good news," said Carole Ketterhagen, director of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Pyramid is led by a group of executives who helped create the Guest Quarters all-suites chain and later ran Doubletree Hotel Corp. before it was merged with Promus Group in the mid-1980s.
Other Adam's Mark properties sold to Pyramid are in San Antonio, Texas; Colorado Springs; Columbia, S.C.; Grand Junction, Colo.; Indianapolis and Northbrook, Ill. Also part of the package is a 742-room Adam's Mark in Daytona Beach.
That property figured into a highly publicized 1999 discrimination lawsuit filed by African-American guests who said they were treated shabbily during a Black College Reunion at Daytona Beach. Adam's Mark paid $1.1-million to settle the case, but admitted no wrongdoing.
Fred Kummer, the St. Louis businessman whose closely held HBE Corp. controls Adam's Mark, termed as "nonsense" trade paper reports in October that he was marketing up to 11 of the 22 properties in the chain.
The Atlanta firm that had the listing declined comment at the time. But five of the hotels in that package, including the Clearwater property, were among the eight sold to Pyramid.
An Adam's Mark in Florida Mall in Orlando that had been previously reported on the market was not among those sold.
- Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.