$31,000 a Key: Portland’s Royal Sonesta Sells for About $6.8 Million After a $114 Million Purchase

By Nathan Snyder, Editor, The Hotelier Times

CoStar data cited by The Oregonian put downtown Portland’s Royal Sonesta (221 rooms) at about $6.8 million — roughly $30,800 a key on our math. A decade earlier, Hospitality Properties Trust paid $114 million for the same building as the Kimpton Hotel Monaco. Charlotte-based Laxmi Hotels Group is the buyer in an eight-hotel package. That is a steep markdown. Whether you call it distress pricing is our analysis, not a broker quote.

The Royal Sonesta Portland Downtown sits at 506 S.W. Washington St. — the former Kimpton Hotel Monaco. Industry data from CoStar Group, cited by Jonathan Bach at The Oregonian / OregonLive (Oct. 28–29, 2026), put the 2026 sale at about $6.8 million. On 221 rooms, that is $30,769 per key — about $30,800 a key, or roughly $31,000 a key rounded. That per-key math is The Hotelier Times’ calculation from the reported price and room count.

The Oregonian also reported a Multnomah County deed showing $4 million changing hands, with the buyer taking on debt against the property. The paper noted it is not clear how that debt shaped total economic consideration.

The $114 Million SEC Baseline

On March 16, 2016, Hospitality Properties Trust — later renamed Service Properties Trust (Nasdaq: SVC) — acquired the Kimpton Hotel Monaco, a 221-room full-service lifestyle hotel in Portland, “for a purchase price of $114,000, excluding acquisition related costs,” according to the REIT’s SEC disclosure (amounts in thousands → $114 million). That is $515,837 per key on the same 221 rooms. Securities filings put the 2016 purchase price at $114 million; some media reports have cited a lower figure.

Against the SEC $114 million basis, a ~$6.8 million 2026 print is roughly a 94% decline in reported sale price. That percentage is arithmetic on attributed figures — not a finding that any party is in default.

Seller, Buyer, and the Eight-Hotel Package

The hotel was sold by an LLC tied to Service Properties Trust, according to The Oregonian.

The buyer is Laxmi Hotels Group, described by The Oregonian as North Carolina-based and by Portland Business Journal / American City Business Journals coverage as a Charlotte investor. Multiple outlets say the Portland hotel was part of an eight-property portfolio purchase. Per the Portland Business Journal, Laxmi CEO Kunal Dave confirmed the deal. The Oregonian separately noted Laxmi did not respond to its own request for comment.

Comps: Minneapolis at ~$13,900 a Key, Hotel Zags at ~$57,500

In the same portfolio news cycle, the 360-room Royal Sonesta Minneapolis Downtown was reported sold for $5 million — about $13,889 per key on our math — per Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal coverage as relayed by Traded, Hotel Realtor, and Hoodline.

Separately, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust said it closed the sale of Portland’s 174-room Hotel Zags on Oct. 8, 2026 for $10.0 million — $57,471 per key on our math — per the company’s Oct. 9 release. Pebblebrook also disclosed trailing twelve-month estimated Hotel EBITDA of negative $0.6 million for the asset. Zags clears higher per key than the Royal Sonesta print and still sits far below what urban lifestyle assets used to fetch.

Downtown Portland’s operating backdrop helps explain why buyers are printing low absolute prices without proving any one seller is “distressed.” CoStar figures discussed by the Portland Business Journal and on OPB’s Think Out Loud (May 29, 2026) put downtown occupancy near 62% in 2025 — roughly 10 points below 2019 — with RevPAR about $13 below 2019. PBJ’s Sara Edwards, citing EcoNorthwest on air, said the market would need to fill around eight full-size hotels, about 1,400 stays a night, to work through oversupply. Soft business travel was the biggest drag she named. Our analysis: trades clearing near $31,000 a key in that tape look like distress pricing relative to the 2016 basis — that label is ours, not a quoted broker on this deal. For related Sonesta/SVC ownership context, see our Sonesta brand piece, the TKO renovation pledge, TKO’s SVC bid, and the Endeavor/RLJ Midway sale.

What ~$31,000 a Key Buys — and What It Does Not

At roughly $31,000 a key, the Portland Royal Sonesta print is not a trophy trade and it is not a land play you can hand-wave. It is a full-service downtown box clearing at a fraction of its 2016 REIT basis after years of soft business travel and an oversupplied CBD room inventory. The Minneapolis sister print near $13,900 a key is even thinner on a per-key basis. Hotel Zags at about $57,500 a key — still with negative trailing Hotel EBITDA on Pebblebrook’s disclosure — shows that “higher than Sonesta” is not the same as healthy. Buyers in this tape are underwriting CapEx, labor, and a multi-year demand recovery, not a quick flip to 2019 RevPAR.

For brokers and owners watching SVC-linked and Sonesta-flagged assets, the message is process as much as price. An LLC tied to a public REIT sold; a regional franchise operator bought inside an eight-hotel package. Portfolio buyers can average basis across markets. Single-asset owners cannot. If you are selling into this bid, expect buyers to anchor on 2025–26 CoStar/operating prints and recent Portland comps — Marriott Waterfront, Zags, RiverPlace color — not on a decade-old SEC purchase price. If you are buying, the $114 million line in the 2016 filing is useful only as a reminder of how far urban full-service marks can move when office workers and group calendars do not come back on schedule.

What This Means for Your Hotel…