Hotel Ivy sold to local buyer

Heartland Realty Investors has acquired the upscale Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis, four years after the project fell into foreclosure.

Minneapolis-based Heartland will not rebrand the 136-room hotel, which is part of Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ Luxury Collection. But it is planning a multimillion-dollar renovation — no structural changes, just some updated furniture, carpet and wallpaper — and weighing whether to reconcept the Porter & Frye restaurant, which has suffered from inconsistency over the years due to changing chefs.

Terms of the deal were not immediately known.

This will be the second hotel property for Heartland, a long-term investor that historically has focused on the apartment sector. Late last year, the company bought the Holiday Inn Metrodome, which was repositioned as the Courtyard Minneapolis Downtown earlier this year following a $17 million renovation.

“Ivy is certainly much less of a repositioning story,” said Paul Wischermann, whose company served as a consultant to Heartland on the deal and will manage the hotel moving forward. “It just needs some stability.”

Reported by:  Mpls-St Paul Business Journal