ANNAPOLIS-During Chesapeake Lodging Trust's earnings call last month, CEO Jim Francis teased the audience with talked of two deals under LOI. The 313-room Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, it turns out, is one. As GlobeSt.com reported, the REIT purchased the fee simple interest in the 313-room Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco from an affiliate of Hyatt Hotels Corp. for $103.5 million, or approximately $331,000 per key. Chesapeake entered into an agreement with Evolution Hospitality to manage the hotel under a franchise agreement with a Hyatt affiliate.

But more is coming, according to Francis' comments. After noting that deal activity has increased moderately this year from a relatively modest pace in the second half of 2012, he said that the REIT has "two additional hotels under LOI, which total approximately $175 million, including some modest renovation costs. We should be in a position to announce the details of these transactions in the near future."

When pressed for "more color" on the deals under LOI, Francis had this to say: "I won't give you specific markets, I will say that one of the hotels is in a market that we are currently in today and we have representation, we know the market well, and one of the hotels is -- the second hotel is in a market that's in close proximity to markets that we're in today, but I'm not going to give you any more color than that at this point on markets."

The REIT also owns the Le Meridien San Francisco.

Given the acquisition tear the REIT has been on, the list of cities where that second acquisition might be – located, as Francis said in a "market that's in close proximity to markets that we're in today" – is a growing one.

Just in recent months it has acquired the 184-room Hyatt Place in New York City for $76.2 million and the 97-room New Orleans French Quarter for $25.5 million. Shortly after that first acquisition in the Big Easy, it went on to buy the 410-room W New Orleans for $65 million.

"With these hotels now closed and on our balance sheet we currently have 18 hotels comprised of 5,414 rooms with approximately $1.3 billion of hotel investment," Francis said. That was, of course, before this latest transaction and presumably the one soon to follow.