Sale of Hotel Monroe Complete

PHOENIX—Snyder Nationwide Real Estate and Cassidy Turley this week announced they successfully sold Hotel Monroe, a 157,000-square-foot hotel located at 25 E. Monroe in Phoenix. CSM Corporation and Grasshopper Development, LLC purchased the 150-room hotel for $7,850,000. Mark and Jay Snyder with Snyder Nationwide Real Estate and Don Arones with Cassidy Turley represented the seller, C&M Loan, LLC and ML Manager, LLC.

Mark Snyder, president of Snyder Nationwide Real Estate, stated, “The Phoenix hotel market suffered due to the recession as travelers cut back, companies curtailed conferences, and hotels slashed rates.  However, the Downtown market is poised for major growth and expansion. The emergence of businesses like T-Gen, the additions of Arizona State University and the newly expanded Phoenix Convention Center have all added to the growth in the Downtown hospitality market.”

According to Snyder Nationwide Real Estate, the city's recent expansion to the Phoenix Convention Center put it on-par with other metro markets that have 9,000 to 12,000 rooms. Excluding the Hotel Monroe, Downtown Phoenix has 3,104 rooms, so the market has plenty of room for expansion.

According to Arones, “It is exciting to see a very qualified hotel owner/operator, like CSM in-place to develop this iconic building in Downtown Phoenix. This sale would not have happened if we didn't have the cooperation and assistance between all parties, including Michael Coolidge and his team at CSM, the City of Phoenix and the Mayor's office and CSM's development partners Jay Wentz and Ed Gorman with Grasshopper.”

Snyder added, “Once the lien obstacles were worked through and contingencies removed, we were able to reach an amiable agreement for the sale of Hotel Monroe.” He added, “The massive, beautiful lobby of Hotel Monroe will be one of the most spectacular in the Phoenix market.”

Designed by the architecture firm of Morgan, Wells & Clements, and H.H. Green, The Professional Building, as it was originally named, was recognized as the last major, historical, high-rise in Phoenix and the largest known limestone structure in Arizona. It was erected in 1931 at the corner of Central Avenue and Monroe Street and originally housed the Valley National Bank and other offices.  The building was envisioned to become an upscale, 4-Star, boutique hotel, and a vast amount of structural work, environmental remediation and framing had already been done for 150 guest rooms by Grace Communities before the project stalled due to the recession in 2008. ML Properties foreclosed on the property in 2008. The building has remained vacant for the last five years.