HEI Hotels & Resorts of Connecticut has bought the 258-room Le Meridien Dallas North Hotel near the Galleria shopping mall.  HEI gained title to the 9-year-old hotel at last week’s foreclosure auction. Earlier, the investor had bought the debt on the property at 13402 Noel Road.  The Far North Dallas hotel acquisition is HEI’s fourth hotel purchase in 2010.

“This is a first-class hotel with a prime location in the foremost business center of Dallas and aligns perfectly with our portfolio of upper-upscale and luxury properties in leading U.S. markets,” Steve Mendell, HEI’s president of acquisitions and development, said Monday in a prepared statement. “This is the fourth acquisition of HEI Hospitality Fund III, and we continue to seek out assets that leverage the experience of our acquisitions team and our investment resources.”

The luxury hotel was remodeled last year and has 3,500 square feet of meeting space, an indoor swimming pool and a fitness center.  The hotel had been posted for foreclosure for several months after owner APHM-ND LP of California defaulted on its debt. The original loan on the property was $32 million.  Investment banker and broker Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP negotiated the sale of the debt on the hotel to HEI.  At the foreclosure sale, the new owners bid $17 million for the property, according to data from Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service.  Click here for full report from Dallas News….