Hawkins Way acquires bankrupt FiDi hotel valued at $154.5M, assumes $137M loan

Hawkins Way Capital through the entity 99 Washington Owner, LLC acquired from the entity Golden Seahorse LLC the former Holiday Inn Manhattan – Financial District hotel building (H2) at 99 Washington Street as well as the adjacent six-unit mixed-use building (K4) at 103 Washington Street, in Financial District, Manhattan. The expected use is cash flowing. The transfer was valued at $154.5 million. The hotel was placed into bankruptcy in 2022 as the former owners Jubao Xie and Ziyi Xie faced a foreclosure action.
The deal closed on June 25, 2025 and was recorded on July 22, 2025. The two properties have 150,737 square feet of built space and 14,362 square feet of additional air rights according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,024 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The signatory for the seller was Jeffrey Kolessar of GF Hotels & Resorts which was managing the asset. The signatory for Hawkins Way Capital was Joshua Bird . The contract date was June 10, 2025.

To finance the acquisition, Hawkins Way Capital assumed the $137 million securitized loan, packaged into a trust known as Series 2018-C6.

Jubao Xie and Ziyi Xie acquired the McSam Hotel Group-built hotel, borrowing $137 million. Midland Loan Services filed to foreclose on a securitized loan with an original principal of $137.5 million, provided in 2018, on the 50-story, 492-room hotel in the Financial District at 99 Washington Street. The property was developed by Xie and Sam Chang, and Xie took complete control in 2014.  The property was on the market in 2017 for $300 milion, The Real Deal reported. Southern District bankruptcy filing was number 22-11582-pb, and in New York State Supreme Court the index number was 850073/2022.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Hawkins Way Capital purchased one property in one transaction for a total of $30 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Jubao Xie had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Jeffery Kolessar, head officer and Tomas Nochta, site manager. The business entity is Golden Seahorse Llc. The two properties with a total of 150,737 square feet of built space generated revenue of $34.1 million per year or $226 per square foot. The sale price per square foot was $1,025.

The property

The hotel building in Financial District has 150,737 square feet of built space and 14,362 square feet of additional air rights according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 55 feet and is 87 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,165 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-9 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $76.1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received two DOB violations, $6,250 in ECB penalties, and $6,250 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot buildings, one out of the two buildings received a initial certificate of occupancy in the last ten years. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Financial District, The majority, or 74 percent of the 79.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Financial District has the 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.8 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Financial District is the 4th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 14.7 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 18 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On the tax block of 99 Washington Street, PincusCo has identified the owners of seven of the 12 commercial properties representing 170,174 square feet of the 357,339 square feet. The largest owner is Concord Hotels, followed by Torkian Group and then Grubb Properties.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 340,376 square feet. It is a 388-unit, 340,376 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Grubb Properties and filed by Richard Ohebshalom with plans filed December 11, 2014 and permitted December 7, 2015.

The majority, or 66 percent of the 357,339 square feet of built space are hotel buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 16 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Hawkins Way Capital owned at least three commercial properties in New York City with 526,639 square feet and a city-determined market value of $119 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $407.7 million in debt, with top three lenders as Standard Chartered Bank, G4 Capital Partners, and CIM Group respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 77 percent of the 526,639 square feet of built space are hotel properties, with H8 properties next occupying 17 percent of the space. The bulk, or 77 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 23 percent of the space.

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