Argent Sells 16% Stake in Crowne Plaza Hotel to Michael Loeb for $53M

Investor Michael Loeb bought a 15.9 percent stake in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Times Square, in a deal that values the property at $334.9 million, property records show.

Loeb paid Andrew Penson’s Argent Ventures $53.3 million to become a minority owner of the 46-story hotel at 1601 Broadway, which has the Krispy Kreme flagship store on the ground floor, according to property records made public Thursday. 

Loeb, who is an investor in startups and the founder of venture capital firm Loeb.nyc, and a spokesperson for Argent did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear if brokers were involved.

The deal comes two years after a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ordered SL Green Realty to hand over its stake in the 35-year-old hotel to mezzanine lender Argent after defaulting on its $330 million mortgage, as The Real Deal previously reported.

SL Green snapped up a $121 million stake in the property in 2021 when the Crowne Plaza, which occupies the top 32 floors of the tower, was closed. (It reopened in 2022 after shuttering for two years during the pandemic.)

That closure caused financial strain to the building’s labyrinthe of ownership at the time — which included the Walber family which partially owned the site dating back to its 1987 construction — and they filed for bankruptcy in 2022 carrying $520 million in debt on the property, Bloomberg reported.

The case played out for a year in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York before a judge approved a reorganization plan that led lender Argent to take over SL Green’s stake, court records show. Argent later bought the remaining shares for $17.25 million in late 2022, according to property records.

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