BOOM! Goes North Roosevelt Boulevard, Key West

 

A loyal reader of my blog sent me a text on Friday asking if the Hilton Garden Inn had sold recently. I knew no sale went through the Key West MLS but decided to search the Monroe County Property records. And there it was: the hotel  sold on October 12, 2021 for $58,000,000. The buyer is a new LLC under BLACKSTONE REAL ESTATE in New York City. BLACKSTONE purchased a smaller neighboring property for an additional $5,000,000 on the same day. As I said these sales were not reported in the Key West MLS 

Readers of my blog will recall I started posting photos of the renovation of North Roosevelt Boulevard in 2013 which included the former Holiday Inn. When the building was renovated and expanded the property was rebranded as Hilton Garden Inn. Other 1970 hotels and motels were each renovated during the same time period. The State of Florida Department of Highways saw the renovation of the hotels as an opportune time to redo a two mile section of US 1 as it enters the Island of Key West.  

By April 2015 the projects were progressing toward completion. Nothing happens quick in Paradise. CLICK HERE to view photos I took to commemorate the project. I took the final photos on Saturday morning. The palms and tropical foliate have grown so tall and thick that the hotel is almost invisible. By coincidence or planning, the new highway infrastructure really added to the revitalization of the hotel properties as a whole. .

Locals will recall the hell of trying to find alternate routes of travel during the two years of highway and hotel hell. It looks pretty good.