Hogwarts Capital Buys 70-Key Fifth Avenue Hotel for $30M

Garden City, N.Y.-based real estate investor Hogwarts Capital flicked its wand and dropped some cash on a piece of real estate on this side of the wizarding world.

Hogwarts bought the 21,955-square-foot 373 Fifth Avenue from an entity tied to struggling Chinese developer Fantasia Holdings Group for $30 million, according to property records made public Friday. 

The eight-story building is currently occupied by the 70-key U Hotel. It’s unclear when the U Hotel opened.

Fantasia purchased the property for $34.9 million in 2014 using the Cayman Islands-based limited liability company Fantasia 373 Hotel U.S., according to property records.

Mitchell Mansfield, managing director of the Cayman Islands office of financial adviser Kroll, which is handling a restructuring of Fantasia, signed the deal to sell 373 Fifth. Mansfield did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear what the new owner plans to do with the property at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 35th Street. A spokesperson for Hogwarts did not respond to a request for comment.

Unlike the fictional school of witchcraft and wizardry, Hogwarts launched its first value-add real estate fund in 2016 and currently holds $150 million in assets, according to its website. In 2020, Hogwarts kicked off a special acquisition fund to purchase between five and eight undervalued hotel properties throughout the country over the next two years, the company announced in a blog post.

The fund would aim to “seize market opportunities in post-pandemic restructuring,” Hogwarts wrote in the blog. 

It’s unclear if brokers were involved in the deal. 

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.