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Baymont Inn and Suites near Busch Gardens sells for hefty profit

 
Mallah Investments of Tampa bought the Baymont Inn and Suites near Busch Gardens for $3.75 million in 2013 and has sold it for $6.95 million.
Mallah Investments of Tampa bought the Baymont Inn and Suites near Busch Gardens for $3.75 million in 2013 and has sold it for $6.95 million.
Published July 8, 2015

TAMPA — The Baymont Inn and Suites — so close to Busch Gardens that all rooms have roller coaster views — has been sold to a Latin American investor.

The purchase price was $6.95 million, showing a hefty profit for the seller, Mallah Investments of Tampa.

"We bought it for about $4 million, put a million into it and sold it for almost $7 million," Benjamin Mallah said Tuesday of the 150-room hotel he owned for barely two years.

As is typical, the purchase was made by a limited liability company, with Mallah never meeting the actual buyer or even knowing his name. But he described the new owner as an "experienced hotel operator" with other hotels in Naples and Orlando, as well as business interests in Latin America.

The Baymont Inn at 3001 University Center Drive will continue to operate as a franchisee of the Wyndham Worldwide chain.

In Tampa Bay and nationwide, the hotel business is going strong, as both leisure and business travel continue to bounce back from the recession.

"It's a great time to be selling, and it will be for another couple of years, and it's not a bad time to be buying," said Kent Schwarz, executive vice president of Colliers International Hotels.

Mallah's company, which moved from California to Tampa Bay in 2004, has a considerable portfolio of hotels including the Best Western Bay Harbor on Courtney Campbell Causeway.

Among Mallah's other properties are the Clearwater Beach Hotel, Ramada Inns in mid-Pinellas and Tampa's West Shore area, and the Fairfield by Marriott in Temple Terrace. He is also rehabbing a 112-room hotel in Daytona Beach.

Mallah said he looks for distressed, mid-sized hotels like the Baymont Inn, which he bought for $3.75 million in a foreclosure sale two years ago.

"We're short term; we like to come in, fix up, stabilize" and resell, he said.

The Baymont Inn attracted him — and its new owner — partly because every room has a view of a Busch Gardens roller coaster. And with rates ranging from about $79 to $129 for a two-room suite, depending on the season, "it's very affordable," Mallah said. "You get your money's worth in getting a lot of space and a great location if you want to go to Busch or be close to I-75."

So-called "midscale" hotels — brands like Baymont Inn, La Quinta and Ramada that offer limited services — are attractive to buyers because of their comparatively low operating costs. While the hospitality business in the Busch Gardens area has been slower to recover than in other parts of Tampa Bay, the Baymont Inn and its nearby competitors reported an 18 percent average increase in revenues in the past 12 months, one survey found.

"It's a little slower in coming back," Schwarz said, "but it's definitely coming back."

Contact Susan Taylor Martin at smartin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8642. Follow @susanskate.