Crescent, Walton TCC Begin Closing $620M Deal

FORT WORTH-Clearing one more hurdle in its transition, Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. has completed the majority of the $620-million pass of hotel and resort properties and one office building to Walton TCC Hotel Investors V LLC.

The closing came just three days after the Fort Worth-based REIT inked a definitive agreement for a $6.5-billion lock, stock and barrel sale of remaining assets to Morgan Stanley Real Estate. Walton’s contract, one of several pending deals from the REIT’s transition schedule, has been on the table since early April.

Crescent officials late yesterday afternoon declared the deal with the Chicago-based Walton, which fell out once, had closed. The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa and neighboring Sonoma Golf Club at 17700 Arnold Dr. in Sonoma, CA was severed from the original stack, but will close in the second quarter. The Sonoma piece will gross $175 million, bumping yesterday’s $445-million pass to the full $620 million, of which Crescent expects to gross about $580 million and a net of roughly $250 million. As previously reported, proceeds will be used to pay down secured debt and apply the balance to its 2007 debt maturities and revolving credit line.

The first closing round, totaling $445 million, turned over deeds to the 60-room Ventana Inn & Spa at Highway 1 in Big Sur, CA; 190-room Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort at 50 W. Thomas Place in Avon, CO; 613-room Denver Marriott City Center at 1701 California St. in the CBD; 388-room Renaissance Houston Hotel at 6 E. Greenway Plaza; 375-room Omni Austin Hotel at 700 San Jacinto Blvd. and 334,664-sf, class A Austin Centre office building at 701 Brazos St., side-by-side assets on a full city block in the state capitol’s Downtown.