Prodea and Invel to Reposition Hotel Bellevue Cortina d’Ampezzo, After €49m Acquisition
Main Photo: The hotel Bellevue with a grand history
Date: July 2022
Name: Hotel Bellevue Suites & Spa Cortina d’Amprezzo
Location: The Dolomites, Cortina d’Amprezzo, 160 km north of Venice, Italy
Number of Keys: 66, including 46 suite apartments – one to three bedrooms
Seller: The hotel was acquired by Donatello Fund, Subfund Michelangelo Due, in 2006. Donatello Fund was launched by Sorgente Sgr and managed until 3rd of December 2018. Sorgente owned the Chrysler Building in New York until 2008, and till own the Flatiron Building in the same city
Buyer: A JV between Greek-based Prodea Investments and Invel Real Estate
Prodea Investments and Invel Real Estate have acquired a €49m hotel in Italy to redevelop into a five-star luxury hotel.
Prodea will own 75% of Hotel Bellevue Cortina d’Ampezzo and Invel’s Eudora Fund LP fund will hold a 25% stake in the asset which is expected to be refurbished in time for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
Prodea and Invel intend to undertake a €25m refurbishment of the six-storey building in Cortina, which is currently used as a hotel and a residential asset.
Chris Papachristophorou, managing partner and founder of Invel Real Estate, said: “This acquisition is a strong endorsement of our local knowledge and network, enabling us to source unique assets and create value.
“Our interest in the hospitality sector remains strong for Greece, Cyprus and Italy, where Prodea and Invel have a strong investment focus, and we now have a remarkable opportunity to develop a new luxury hotel in the heart of Cortina d’Ampezzo, ahead of the Winter Olympics 2026.”
The Hotel Bellevue is located in the heart of the most elegant and fashionable vacation and ski resort in Italy, Cortina, acknowledged as the Queen of the Dolomites for its superb and unsurpassed beauty.
The Hotel Bellevue boasts a historic tradition in Cortina: built in 1894, it is one of the first pioneering hotels whose charm helped create the legend of Cortina, a favorite tourist destination for the elite and sophisticated with Royal families, intellectuals, writers, and film and television celebrities all visiting regularly.
The hotel was a favourite of the American literary genius Ernest Hemingway, who in 1923, staying in the Bellevue, wrote some of his first stories in the series Out of Season. In the Thirties, the hotel continued to be a favorite for vacationing in Cortina D’Ampezzo, boasting amongst its guests the most illustrious protagonists of the fascist regime, from Edda Ciano, Mussolini’s daughter, to Italo Balbo, daring aviator and skillful politician.
During the twentieth century the building witnessed successive major transformations and extensions. It’s moment of greatest splendor is in the late forties and early fifties, when the famous architect Edoardo Gellner was commissioned to redesign the hotel’s image.
Prodea, with €2.9bn AUM, have some six hotel properties, including the Parklane Hotel and the Aphrodite Hills, both in Cyprus, as well as offices, retail and logistics real-estate.
Prodea and Invel appear to be interlinked, with Chris Papacristoporou being the major shareholder in both companies. Invel was founded in 2013, when it acquired a 66% stake in Prodea (previous NBG Pangaea) from the National Bank of Greece, the largest real estate transaction in Greece at the time
Price: €49m
Price per Key: €742k, although the apartments have more than one bedroom
THPT Comment: A real Grande-Dame hotel, once named as the Queen of the Dolomites….looks like it will regain it’s position in time for the Winter Olympics 2026…well done
First Seen: IPE Real Assets
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