Ensemble Renovates Hotel With $25M Loan

HFF managing director Mike White in the company's Irvine office, who arranged the financing for Ensemble through Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, says that the property's renovation and repositioning program is scheduled to be completed in December. White notes that the repositioning will entail changing the hotel's name, completely renovating public areas and guest rooms, adding four guest rooms and adding 3,215 sf of meeting space. The borrower has hired Joie De Vivre, a boutique hotel operator based in San Francisco, as the new hotel management company.

The hotel property already features amenities including indoor/outdoor meeting space, banquet and catering facilities, a full-service restaurant, a fitness room, lighted tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool plus a three-acre water parcel subleased to a marina operator that houses up to 36 boats. "As the closest hotel to the Carnival Cruise Line Terminal the hotel is strategically located to benefit from the estimated 320,000 annual passengers that pass through the terminal each year," White adds. He says that the hotel "had huge unrealized potential due to a unique waterfront orientation facing the Long Beach cityscape."

Ensemble, founded in 1989, is involved in investment, management and development of commercial real estate, with a portfolio of office buildings, medical office buildings and hotels. The company operates out of offices in Long Beach, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Reno.