A three-day online auction seeking bidders for the Hartford Hilton hotel ended Wednesday afternoon without a buyer, owner Waterford Group confirmed.
The 388-room Trumbull Street hotel furloughed or laid off hundreds of workers over the spring and summer as the COVID-19 pandemic caused events and travel activity to plunge, warning that it may have to close.
The virtual auction, with a starting bid of $5.5 million, was announced over a month ago. It’s not clear how many bids the hotel received during the auction, but Waterford said none met the minimum amount of money it was prepared to accept.
“The auction did not result in the reserve price being met, and therefore we do not have a qualified buyer at this time,” Waterford said in a statement Thursday morning. “RobertDouglas, the exclusive advisor on this transaction, is in active discussions with interested parties that have expressed the need for additional time for due diligence and the preference to negotiate through a private sales process. We will continue to pursue these potential buyers in the coming weeks and will provide further updates as they become available.”
Aiming to make the property more attractive to potential buyers, Hartford’s city council in September authorized Mayor Luke Bronin to extend the hotel’s land lease and negotiate a more favorable tax arrangement.
