Collier County resort sells for nearly $1 billion

The JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort has been sold to an investment group that paid $835 million for the 809-room luxury beachfront property along the Gulf coast in Collier County.

The buyer is a joint venture between Sculptor Real Estate and Trinity Investments, which took out a $690 million loan to complete the purchase.

The resort was previously owned Chicago-based Barings, the global asset manager for MassMutual, which bought it in 2013 and five years later undertook a $320 million renovation, rebranding it under the JW Marriott flag when the work was done.

JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group represented Barings, arranged for the financing for the joint venture and announced the sale.

The sale is one of the largest in Southwest Florida history, beating out Martin Marietta’s $620 million purchase of nearly 2,000 acres in Lee County in 2024.

As for other resorts sales in the area, the former Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club sold for $362.3 million in 2021 and the South Seas on Captiva Island sold for $125 million, also in 2021.

The resort, according to JLL, sits on 26.7 acres with a quarter mile of private beachfront. Its 809 rooms and suites have private balconies and include the 94-room adults-only Paradise by Sirene.

In addition to the lodging, the property includes more than 140,000 square feet of meeting and event space; 12 restaurants and dining venues; two 18-hole golf courses totaling more than 400 acres; a 24,000-square-foot spa; five outdoor swimming pools; four tennis courts; fitness and business centers; and an entertainment venue.

The resort also operates The Members Club at Marco, a private club with about 700 members, says JLL.

Steven Orbuch, the founder and president of Sculptor Real Estate, says in a separate statement that “the property is well-positioned to benefit from continued demand for high-quality resort experiences.

“We also see meaningful opportunity to enhance the property's competitive position through a disciplined capital improvement program over our ownership period, further unlocking the asset's long-term value.”

Details of what improvements will be made were not disclosed.

Sculptor Real Estate was founded in 2003 and has invested in over $27 billion of real estate assets across 30 different real estate-related assets. 

Miami-based Trinity is a global hospitality investment platform that buys, repositions and runs properties. It has “deployed” more than $10 billion across the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Japan. In Florida, its investments include The Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood; Grande Lakes Orlando Resort; and the East Miami hotel. Across these properties, the firm says, it has invested more than $225 million in renovations and property repositioning.

As for the $690 million financing, it is a five-year, floating-rate loan through Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which is securitized in a stand-alone Commercial Mortgage-Backed Security offering.

JLL's Hotels & Hospitality team that worked on the deal includes Kevin Davis, Daniel C. Peek, Andrew Dickey, Mike Huth, Maciej Polek, Wyatt Krapf, Jesse Pohl and Jade Lewin.