The transactions leave Norwalk, Conn.-based HEI owning just one hotel here: The 202-room Le Meridien Philadelphia Hotel, which opened in May on Arch Street between Broad and 15th Streets. However, LaSalle said it was retaining HEI as manager of the Westin and Embassy Suites.
The news release issued by LaSalle gushed over a third purchase - its first hotel in San Francisco, the Hotel Monaco, for $68.5 million - and contained details of the two Philadelphia properties. But the statement only briefly noted the sale of the Seaview Resort in Galloway Township for $20 million and didn't identify the buyer.
But Richard Stockton College of New Jersey issued its own statement about its purchase of the 300-acre property with a 297-room hotel and two golf courses. College president Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. called it "a historic day for Stockton and all of southern New Jersey."
Given that LaSalle paid $50 million for Seaview in 1998, the REIT's management was probably feeling less jubilant.
August clunker
All streaks come to end, and so one did for Subaru of America Inc. when it reported lower August sales compared with the same month last year.
Subaru posted higher sales for 13 straight months until the recent August lull broke the trend. Of course, Subaru's August 2009 sales of 28,683 were an all-time best, fueled by a federal "cash for clunkers" program. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that Subaru and other automakers were going to have a tough month compared with the stimulus-fueled giddiness of last year.
Cherry Hill-based Subaru, a unit of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan, reported sales of 22,239 vehicles, led by its Outback model, which accounted for 8,053 of those sales.
That's a 22.5 percent decline in total sales from August 2009 and a 7.3 percent decline from July 2010.
