The Hampton Inn & Suites hotel in downtown Milwaukee, which has been closed since May, has been purchased by its new operator for $6 million — about half of what it was valued at two months ago.
In August, the 138-room hotel, located at 176 W. Wisconsin Ave., was taken over by its lender, Oak Brook, Illinois-based
Evergreen Bank Group, in a deed in lieu of foreclosure action. For that transaction the property was valued at $11.8 million, according to state real estate records.
A deed in lieu of foreclosure is an arrangement in which one voluntarily turns over ownership of a property to the lender to avoid the foreclosure process.
Earlier this month, city permits revealed that Lisle, Illinois-based
E.M.A. Hospitality would be the hotel's new operator, and new state real estate records show that an affiliate of E.M.A. Hospitality purchased the hotel property from the bank.
E.M.A. Hospitality, which owns several hotels including the La Quinta Inn in Oak Creek, is the downtown Hampton Inn hotel's fourth operator in four years.
In May,
messages were posted to the hotel’s front entrance and website saying the building was closed for renovations, but the hotel’s owner and operator at the time declined to comment on what those renovations would entail. Further, no permits have been filed with Milwaukee’s Department of Neighborhood Services to do renovation work at the hotel.
The August transaction marked
the second time in recent years that the hotel had been acquired by its lender. In March 2019, the hotel’s ownership was transferred to an affiliate Atlanta-based Peachtree Hotel Group from its previous owner, Connecticut-based New Castle Hotels & Resorts. New Castle turned over the hotel property to Peachtree in order to avoid foreclosure.
E.M.A. Hospitality did not immediately respond to request for comment on its plans for the hotel or an estimated reopening date.
