Portman Acquires Iconic Westin Peachtree Plaza With New Fund
The developer of one of the most iconic skyline symbols of Atlanta has purchased the tower with plans for a major renovation.
Portman Holdings, through its Portman Hospitality Fund I, acquired the Westin Peachtree Plaza, the distinctive cylindrical, 1,073-room hotel in Downtown Atlanta, for an undisclosed sum from Marriott International.
The purchase, announced Thursday, marks a return for Portman, whose eponymous founder, John Portman, developed the 73-story hotel in 1976. The hotel is one of the tallest in the Western Hemisphere. Portman, whose development achievements included Peachtree Center, the AmericasMart and the Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel, died in 2017 at the age of 93.
What comes next is an exhaustive renovation of the hotel, from the rooms to the public areas and meeting facilities, Portman Managing Director Kaunteya Chitnis told Bisnow.
“Portman is uniquely capable of executing this project. Obviously, we know the building very well,” Chitnis said.
Chitnis also declined to disclose the purchase price and the renovation budget. But he said the refresh project is slated to be completed in time for Super Bowl LXII in 2028 in Atlanta. He said Portman also bought the land underneath the tower, which Marriott purchased for $50M from the state of Georgia in 2024.
Marriott will continue to operate the hotel for Portman. Marriott obtained the hotel in 2016 through its merger with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, The Real Deal reported. Fulton County valued the hotel at $120.4M last year, according to county property records.
“The bones of the building are terrific. It has not been renovated really meaningfully in over a decade,” Chitnis said. “Every kind of square foot of the asset does need to be touched.”
The Peachtree Plaza is the inaugural purchase for Portman’s fund, which filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month to raise $300M. Chitnis declined to say how much Portman could acquire under the fund when factoring in leverage.
The Downtown Development Authority approved this week an up to $65M C-PACE loan with Nuveen Green Capital to help Portman finance energy-efficiency, water-efficiency and resilience capital projects. The loan has a 26-year term and will help Portman achieve around $250,000 in annual energy and water savings, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Chitnis joined Portman more than two years ago to spearhead the company's hospitality platform. The firm has some 4,100 rooms and $1.5B of hotels under management, he said.
