Hotel's $214M sale sets area precedent

ST. PETERSBURG BEACH — The “Pink Palace,” the iconic Don CeSar Hotel and Resort on St. Pete Beach, fetched $214 million when it was acquired earlier this year by Host Hotels & Resorts, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that spun off of Marriott International two decades ago.

The price equates to one of the highest sales amounts for a single hospitality asset in Gulf Coast history.

Pinellas County property records listed the sale of the 347-room resort at $202.7 million, but Host Hotels officials noted the higher price in announcing the mid-February purchase, which also involved a “like-kind exchange” with the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa, in Palm Desert, Calif.