Investors buy Hyatt Regency Tampa

By MARK ALBRIGHT

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

TAMPA -- A group of pension funds is spending $46-million to buy the Hyatt Regency Tampa, one of the largest hotels in the Tampa Bay area.

The purchase by Lend Lease Real Estate Investment Group comes after Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors, which paid $33-million for the downtown property in 1996, poured $12-million into an extensive renovation.

Lend Lease is a U.S. unit of a global pension fund advisory group that's based in Australia. Among Cornerstone's biggest investors are Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. and the Harvard University Endowment Fund.

Hyatt Corp. will continue managing the 521-room property that was built by GTE Inc. in 1982 as part of its regional headquarters complex at Tampa City Center. GTE sold the property to Cornerstone.

The hotel was the downtown's largest until the new 717-room Tampa Marriott Waterside opened last winter.

The heightened competition for business travelers and conventioneers in downtown Tampa figured into the renovation. The Hyatt's occupancy rate dropped as the well-worn property deteriorated and lost its four-star rating in the early 1990s. The hotel's other direct rival, the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel, also recently spent heavily on a renovation.

"They've done a good job of repositioning the Hyatt within the downtown market with the arrival of the new Marriott," said Dan Peek, a vice president at Plasencia Group, the Tampa company that brokered the sale.

After the remodeling, the Hyatt's occupancy rate rebounded while the average room rate rose in 1999.

"Business has been good," said Tom Smith, Hyatt general manager. "It's been even better since the Waterside opened because we're now able to bid for bigger conventions."

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