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1. Braemar to sell Marriott Seattle Waterfront
Braemar Hotels & Resorts, a real estate investment trust and an affiliate of Dallas-based Ashford Hospitality, has agreed to sell the 369-room Marriott Seattle Waterfront in Seattle for $145 million, or $393,000 per key, CoStar News' Bryan Wroten reports. The sale price represents an 8.1% capitalization rate on net operating income for the trailing 12 months ended May 31.
"The sale of this upper-upscale hotel will help deleverage our portfolio and further align our financial performance with the luxury hotel sector," Braemar President and CEO Richard Stockton said in a news release.
2. LVMH to sell only US property
French luxury company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has agreed to sell its only U.S. hotel — the 90-room Belmond El Encanto in Santa Barbara, California — for $82.2 million, or about $900,000 per room, Business Immo's Mehdi Touazi reports.
The buyers are a joint venture that includes brothers Justin and Tyler Mateen and Culver Capital. Justin Mateen is one of the co-founders of Tinder.
This is the second real estate project the Mateen brothers have invested in recently, having bought a shopping mall on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles for $69 million last month. They plan to manage the five-star hotel themselves.
3. Labor attorney says hotels 'need to prepare' for ICE raids
As the U.S. federal government continues to intensify its focus on arresting and deporting illegal immigrants and legal immigrants who have lost their protected status, hoteliers increasingly need to be prepared, CoStar News' Bryan Wroten reports.
Employers in the hotel industry need to know what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents come to their property, said Jessica Cook, a partner at Fisher Phillips, a law firm that specializes in immigration employment.
“They need to prepare,” Cook said. “The government is laser focused when it comes to immigration compliance right now, and we're going to see the worksite enforcement continue.”
4. US ports push for delay on Chinese crane tariffs
U.S. port operators are warning that costs could increase by tens of millions of dollars if tariffs on Chinese-made cranes are put into effect, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Trump administration is proposing tariffs of up to 100%, which would be stacked on top of 25% tariffs introduced under the Biden administration.
Carl Bentzel, president of the National Association of Waterfront Employers, said he has visited the White House to lobby his case for a delay in the tariffs until an alternative source for the cranes is found.
“They said, ‘We’re going to put penalties as high as necessary to ensure you don’t buy equipment from China,’” Bentzel said. “But we need some level of transition.”
5. Canadian companies turn to non-US trade partners
In light of U.S. tariffs and declining sentiment, Canadian companies are turning to other countries for trade to decrease their reliance on the U.S., Reuters reports. Canadian government data shows that exports to the U.S. decreased by 10 percentage points between May 2024 and May 2025.
"This is a good thing for Canadian diversification," said Stuart Bergman, chief economist at Export Development Canada, a government agency. "It's also important to mention that we are not looking to replace our U.S. business. That would be crazy."