$8.8M Acquisition Loan on the 1927 Hilton Checkers Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles

In 2010, Chesapeake Lodging Trust paid $46,000,000 for the Hilton Checkers, per REBusinessOnline. In January 2026 its successor, Park Hotels and Resorts, sold the hotel; Los Angeles County records show a $12,405,000 sale recorded January 29, 2026, with prior owner of record CHSP Los Angeles LLC, and MarketScreener reports the price as 12.5 million to an undisclosed buyer. On April 30, 2026, First Bank recorded an $8,760,000 acquisition deed of trust against the property, executed two days earlier.

The collateral is a piece of downtown history. Built in 1927 as the Mayflower Hotel and designed by architect Charles Whittlesey in Mission Revival style, per the Los Angeles Conservancy, which profiles the building among its historic places, the hotel operates today under the Hilton flag with the 1927 BAR+KITCHEN restaurant and bar on site. The loan records against 533 South Grand Avenue while the hotel lists itself at 535 South Grand; both point to the same parcel. Room count depends on the source: Park's first quarter 2026 release describes a 193 room hotel, while the Conservancy lists 188, reduced from an original 348. Both figures are reported as published.

The buyer of record is Downtown Grand Holdings LLC, a California limited liability company formed December 29, 2025, weeks before the purchase closed. The seller's release states the hotel traded in a combined transaction with the Hilton Seattle Airport for approximately 31 million in gross proceeds across the two assets.

The recorded debt history shows how far the capital structure has come down. Wells Fargo instruments recorded between 2010 and 2012 carried amounts from $115,000,000 up to $300,000,000, portfolio scale facilities recorded against the property during REIT ownership, and Goldman Sachs recorded a $32,000,000 leasehold deed of trust in 2013. Earlier chapters ran through East West Bank at $20,000,000 and $27,300,000 in 2006 and 2007 and Far East National Bank before that. Today's $8,760,000 first deed of trust is the smallest senior instrument recorded on the hotel in twenty years.

First Bank describes itself as a family owned bank with roughly a century of history, operating in Missouri, Illinois, and California, with commercial real estate products spanning acquisition, construction, bridge, and term lending; its published materials do not specifically name hospitality. This is the bank's second closing tracked on LoanList. No other Los Angeles hospitality closing is tracked, so the nearest peers sit outside the market and are labeled accordingly: an $8,500,000 loan from MyPoint Credit Union and an $8,000,000 loan from California Bank of Commerce, both on San Diego hotels, and a $7,500,000 loan from First Commercial Bank in Lake Forest, in Orange County.

For hotel buyers, the pattern across those closings is consistent: this spring, sub $10,000,000 hotel acquisitions across Southern California were financed by community banks and credit unions rather than hotel specialist debt funds. A buyer of a similar asset, even a name brand one, is likely running that same depository process.