Dive Brief:
- Ashford Hospitality Trust has sold a Hilton hotel in Alexandra, Virginia, for $58 million in an all-cash deal, per a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
- Ashford Alexandria LP, a subsidiary of the Dallas-based REIT, completed the sale of the 252-room, pet-friendly Hilton Alexandria Old Town to Chicago-based Lodging Capital Partners, per the March 31 filing. The company also paid around $32.5 million to repay the mortgage lender, initially secured by the hotel.
- The sale aligns with Ashford’s strategy to offload assets from its portfolio in an effort to deleverage its balance sheet, while also improving cash flow and liquidity, Ashford President and CEO Stephen Zsigray previously said in a release. In November, the REIT sold three assets in Texas and Louisiana for nearly $70 million.
Dive Insight:
Ashford, which owned about 68 hotels as of December 2025, has been selling properties at a steady clip as it furthers its strategy to shed its portfolio.
In a fourth-quarter and year-end 2025 earnings call on Feb. 26, Zsigray said that “opportunistic dispositions will remain a core component” of the company’s strategy in 2026.
During the same call, Zsigray said the company agreed to sell three of its hotels, including the La Posada de Santa Fe, a Tribute Portfolio Resort & Spa in New Mexico for $57.5 million; the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront in Florida for $96 million; and the Embassy Suites Palm Beach Gardens PGA Boulevard in Florida for $41 million.
The three sales are expected to “save an additional $45 million in anticipated capital expenditures,” said Zsigray, who was appointed CEO in April 2024. At least two of these deals closed in March — Virginia-based Crescent Hotels & Resorts, in partnership with William Cole Companies and Abo Empire, a New Mexico family office, bought the Santa Fe hotel, per a Crescent release; and Florida-based Kolter Group purchased the St. Petersburg Hilton hotel, per the Tampa Bay Times.
On the earnings call, Zsigray added that Ashford was currently negotiating off-market transactions on 18 additional hotels, though “we may not ultimately transact on all of them.”
Looking ahead, he said, “We expect that our continued focus on performance combined with strategic, low-cap-rate dispositions will result in a leaner, stronger portfolio.” Since last February, the company has sold six hotels, including the Residence Inn San Diego Sorrento Mesa in California for $42 million, which in total generated about $145 million in sales proceeds, “representing a blended 3.9% trailing cap rate, while also eliminating nearly $50 million in anticipated capital expenditures.”
Stronger debt markets, particularly in the U.S., are expected to facilitate a “robust increase” in global hotel investment volumes for 2026, per a February JLL report. Additionally, more deals are poised to go through this year in part due to better price transparency.
