Have Pasadena’s Hotel Constance Buildings Been Sold?

National hotel owner and operator MCR Hotels declined to comment to Pasadena Now over a report that it has acquired the 161-room, seven-story Constance Hotel Pasadena at 908-940 E. Colorado Blvd. and an adjacent building at 880 E. Colorado Blvd. for over $50.3 million.

The March 21 report by CoStar.com said the property was sold by lender KeyBank.

Last June, Acting General Manager William Chu — who was also the finance chief of Singpoli, the Hong Kong real estate investment firm that owned the DusitD2 Constance Pasadena  —  said the building was in foreclosure and the hotel in Chapter 11 but that further legal action had been stayed by the court until the property was sold.

The hotel has been closed since last summer.

Singpoli had spun extravagant plans to convert what had been senior housing into an international travel destination.

“The Chinese owners have brought in one of Thailand’s best-known hoteliers to manage the property and attempt to shake up the city’s staid hospitality market,” the Los Angeles Times wrote of the project in 2014.

Singpoli brought in Hong Kong interior designer Joey Ho, who created what the Times called “a playfully futuristic-looking bar” that served cocktails “where generations of retirees once dined.”

Ho’s vision for an upscale restaurant in the hotel languished. Completion of the hotel complex was fitful.

Neither the bar nor the restaurant, which was never fully completed, seemed to catch on with locals.

The corner property has a rich local history.

The hotel originally opened with 164 guest rooms in December 1929. At that time, there were 18 hotels in the city. After its heyday at the end of the roaring twenties, the hotel became office space and ultimately, for decades, an assisted living facility.

The Pasadena-based Singpoli company purchased the hotel in 2004 and it reopened after renovating it to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in 2014 as the Hotel Constance.

In 2020 the hotel claimed on its website it was the #1 boutique hotel in Pasadena.

After a pool was built atop the building directly west of the hotel, the spot briefly became popular with local nonprofits as a venue for plein air fundraisers and galas.