Blackstone Real Estate-affiliated funds will buy the 785-key Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor for $200 million.
Allegiant Travel Co. is the seller of the resort, according to a news release. The hotel was the first hotel venture for the travel company built around its airline, Allegiant Air.
The property, which opened in 2023, has 22 waterfront acres on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and it includes multiple food-and-beverage outlets, two pools, a spa, a fitness center, a rooftop adult pool and bar, a championship golf course and more than 60,000 square feet of combined indoor meeting space.
The deal is expected to close during the third quarter of 2025.
"The acquisition of this brand new, highly-amenitized resort demonstrates our strong conviction in hospitality and travel and the continued growth in group-oriented destinations," said Scott Trebilco, senior managing director at Blackstone Real Estate, in the news release.
Allegiant Travel CEO Gregory Anderson said in the release that the company will use proceeds from the sale to repay debt and strengthen Allegiant's balance sheet.
During the travel company's second-quarter 2024 earnings call when he was president and the incoming CEO, Anderson said they forecast a cash loss estimate of $15 million for the Sunseeker Resort, including a full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $25 million offset by $10 million in incremental proceeds from business interruption insurance from delays in opening the resort.
"Clearly, Sunseeker financial resorts are not meeting expectations," he said.
The company began a review of the resort's performance after having a chance to settle into it, he said.
"All options are on the table," he said. "That includes a sale or a stake sale, and I think down the road as we think about in the not-too-distant future, an option will be to remove it off our balance sheet."
Performance at the resort would later improve, with the company reporting in the first quarter of 2025 the Sunseeker achieved $4.8 million in EBITDA.