BLOOMINGTON, MN-Platinum Equity, which bought the Sheraton Bloomington for $20 million in early January, has hired Richfield Hospitality to manage the 564-room property. Platinum, based in Los Angeles, is spending about $12.5 million to renovate the facility into a DoubleTree Hotel by the third quarter.

Richfield also arranged the purchase of the property from LaSalle Hotel Properties. Angela Landgraf, SVP of development and management services for Richfield, tells GlobeSt.com that her firm would have liked to have gone 50-50 on ownership of the property. “We were prepared, we have equity that we are looking to aggressively deploy, but they like to have sole ownership,” she says.

Landgraf says the property is just more than a couple decades old, but is a boxy shape, and Starwood didn’t want to keep the site a Sheraton. “We also felt the market needed a fresh brand, the DoubleTree is perfect,” she says. “This hotel fits in our growth strategy, it’s in a top metropolitan market and a high-growth area. Plus we’re close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America,” she says.

The property is at 7800 Normandale, in the heart of the city. The hotel includes 38 meeting rooms with about 78,000 square feet, capable of accommodating 1,000 meeting guests.

Platinum is also working on renovating the DoubleTree Carson Hotel in Carson, CA. Denver-based Richfield also is buying properties, including Renaissance Hotel in Syracuse, NY, which is being rebranded as a Crowne Plaza. Landgraf says the firm has a few other offers on the table. “There’s been a lot of properties through foreclosure, which is good from a buyer standpoint. There seems to be an increased demand now to grab these properties for pennies on the dollar,” she says.