The hotel on Vesterbrogade with the characteristic glass facade changes hands again after being owned by American Starwood Capital. It is the Nordic real estate and urban development investor Nrep that has bought the building.

In 2021, through one of its foundations, Nrep bought the former food market Westmarket, also located on Vesterbrogade, and converted it into the urban hotel CityHub. Since the corona pandemic, when the travel and hotel industry was hit hard, the market has otherwise been characterized by low activity - but despite this, Nrep sees the purchase as a unique opportunity. This is explained by Mohamad Awad, Investment Director at Nrep.

"The market is on its way back from the level during COVID-19, and the number of overnight stays in Copenhagen has increased significantly in recent years – a development that has primarily been driven forward by Danish visitors. With this investment, we have got a high-quality hotel in a sublime location," he says, adding that the activity from international visitors is also increasing and is now about 10 percent lower than the level before the corona pandemic.

"We are experiencing an increased interest in Copenhagen as a travel destination. There have been more and better attractions in the capital, attracting travelers during the holiday periods when business activity is low. For these reasons, we are interested in buying more within the hotel segment."

Comfort Hotel, which replaced the cinema Saga Teatret, was built in 1990 and then rebuilt in 2014, and it consists of 13,560 square meters divided into no less than 399 rooms and common areas. The plan is to upgrade the property so that in future the hotel will be self-sufficient in green energy – a maneuver that will make it possible to significantly reduce the building's CO2 consumption. A total of DKK 50 million has been set aside. DKK for the upgrade.

Through the fund NSF 5, Nrep's parent company Urban Partners has raised more than DKK 27 billion. DKK, which must be invested in residential, office, logistics and hotel properties under administration.

"We see great potential for these "brown-to-green" investments to be profitable for both landlord and tenant," says Mohamad Awad.

In connection with the purchase, Nrep has been advised by Bruun & Hjejle, PwC and Nordic Hotel Consulting, while the Norwegian investment bank Arctic Securities was the advisor for Starwood Capital.