Garden City Hotel sale raises speculation

While there was little surprise in the real estate industry at the news this week that the luxury Garden City Hotel is being sold, there was lots of speculation about its future.

Perhaps the would-be new owner, the Fortuna Realty Group of Manhattan, headed by Morris Moinian, might “plant a flag” outside the Garden City Hotel, a flag bearing the name Hilton, or Hyatt or Marriott. Those industry giants would come in as operators, and the Garden City Hotel would retain its iconic name.

That was a possibility offered by Tom McConnell, executive managing director of Cushman Wakefield's global hospitality unit. McConnell stressed that such an idea was only one of a number of different possibilities. There has always been talk, he said, of using some of the hotel's 280 rooms as permanent residences of some type, such as co-ops.

Whatever the future holds, it is a good time to buy a hotel, said David Pennetta, a principal in Oxford & Simpson Realty Services, brokers in Jericho.

“The timing is good,” Pennetta said. After the November elections, he said, “there's going to be an economic expansion. There's pent-up demand” for goods and services.