One of the world’s richest men is buying the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield.
Steve Horve, the hotel owner, would not disclose a purchase price but said that an offer to buy the property from Khalaf Ahmad al Habtoor came about a month ago and was unsolicited. Habtoor was in the area to see former president Jimmy Carter speak at Illinois College.
“While he was in Springfield, he stopped by the hotel, walked around and said ‘I want to buy this,’” said Horve, who purchased the property for $6.5 million in a 2009 foreclosure auction from the state of Illinois, which took possession after construction loans made in the 1980s went unpaid. “They wanted to buy it in two weeks. You can’t buy a house in two weeks.”
It took three or four days to negotiate a deal, said Horve, who expects to close on the deal in two weeks. The owner of record will be the Al Habtoor Group, LLC, which is based in Dubai, Horve said, and hotel will remain under Hilton management.
After buying the hotel, Horve renovated all 310 rooms. After gaining affiliation with Hilton last year, business increased by 28 percent, he said. While the purchase price in the pending deal isn’t public, Horve said that his investment proved wise.
“I had a number, and I wouldn’t sell it for less,” Horve said. “I got my number. … I knew there was an opportunity there, that’s why I bought it. It worked out the way I hoped to have it work out.”
Listed by Forbes magazine as the 335th richest man in the world, al Habtoor is worth more than $2.3 billion, according to the magazine. He made his fortune in construction and has branched out into other businesses, including luxury hotels and automobile sales. He owns four hotels in Dubai, including a Waldorf Astoria that opened last year. Al Habtoor Group is currently building a massive $3 billion project in Dubai called Al Habtoor City that will include three hotels on one piece of ground, plus three residential towers that will include 1,500 apartments. Al Habtoor also owns Bentley, Bugatti and McLaren automobile dealerships as well as dealerships that sell Mitsubishis as well as Chery and JAC vehicles from China. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip attended the Al Habtoor Challenge Match, a polo tournament in Dubai, earlier this year. A team sponsored by al Habtoor won. He also sponsors a women’s tennis tournament.
The Al Habtoor Group website lists no U.S. real estate interests, and Horve said that he believes that his hotel will be the first Habtoor purchase in the United States.
“The good thing is, as successful as this group is and as successful as the hotel has been, I’m just some guy from Forsyth,” Horve said. “They can take this thing and really do something with it, if that’s what they’re going to do.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2014.
