On the Road: Finance woes for two SoCal hotels

St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort

By Joe Brancatelli

THE EX FILES II

Maybe ‘W’ Stands for ‘Walking Away’: The owner of the W Hotel in San Diego is taking the extraordinary step of walking away from the property. Sunstone Hotel Investors has forfeited the 258-room property to lenders after it failed to reach a compromise on a $65 million mortgage. Sunstone bought the hotel for $96 million in 2006, but it isn’t generating enough revenue to cover the monthly mortgage payment.

And not too far up the Southern California coast, the now-notorious St. Regis Monarch Beach is facing a foreclosure auction. The companies that own the 8-year-old resort are in default of a $70 million loan and the 400-room property is due to go on the block in July.Any buyer would also get the resort’s golf course, but would be on the hook for $230 million in mortgages. In case you’ve forgotten, the St. Regis Monarch Beach is the hotel where AIG, fresh from an $85 billion taxpayer-funded bailout last fall, spent more than $440,000 for an incentive trip.