Kimpton Hotels Buys Hotel Palomar in Washington from Spain´s Barceló

Kimpton Hotels added another Hotel Palomar to its portfolio with the acquisition of the 335-room Radisson Barceló Hotel in Washington for an undisclosed sum.

Kimpton said it plans to invest $35 million to transform the property into the luxury Hotel Palomar in the U.S. capital.

The hotel´s current 301-room configuration will be expanded to 335 rooms. Another 4,000 square feet of meetings space also will be added, bringing the total available meetings space to approximately 10,500 square feet. Plans also call for adding a signature chef-driven Kimpton restaurant.

When the Hotel Palomar debuts in 2006, it will be the seventh Kimpton property in the metropolitan D.C. area. It also will be the second addition to the Hotel Palomar sub-brand, which was recently launched by the lifestyle hotel chain.

The first Hotel Palomar open in San Francisco in 1999. The hotel concept, which boasts “high-end residential design and sophisticated atmosphere,” has been so popular that Kimpton decided to develop more of them, in much the same way it grew Hotel Monaco into a sub-brand of seven hotels across the U.S.