27-Jan-15 – The Westin Market Street (above) in San Francisco is not precisely on Market Street and now it is no longer a Westin.

LaSalle Hotel Properties, the real estate investment trust that owns Hotel Chicago and The Westin Michigan Avenue in River North, renamed the 681-room hotel after buying it for $350 million.

It is now the Park Central Hotel San Francisco. LaSalle says it is “an independent hotel,” no longer a Westin, a hotel brand owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Highgate Hotels will continue to manage the hotel, located actually on Third Street but close to the city’s famous Market Street.

Announcing the sale on Monday, LaSalle CEO Michael Barnello called it a “prominent hotel with such a fantastic location.”

“The San Francisco lodging market remains very strong,” says Barnello, “with demand at peak levels and limited supply growth on the horizon.”

He says 17 percent of his company’s earnings are from the four hotels – now five – that it owns in San Francisco, including the 200-room Hotel Vitale, purchased last April.

The Park Central Hotel San Francisco was built in 1984 and renovated in 2007 at a cost of $28.3 million. It will be renovated again in 2016.

(Above) Two workers remove plywood from the front of Hotel Chicago, where a new main entrance is being constructed. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

LaSalle’s Hotel Chicago, meanwhile, is in the middle of a $10 million renovation started last October. Alterations are being made to a lobby and other public areas of the Marina City hotel. A new canopy is being installed over the main entrance. During construction, the entrance to the hotel has been moved closer to North Dearborn Street.

Based in Bethesda, Maryland, LaSalle now owns 46 hotels in 14 markets.