Toronto's Manga Hotels Buys Chelsea's 158-Key Chelsean for $50M

Toronto-based Manga Hotels paid $50 million for the Chelsean New York, a 158-key hotel at 158-162 West 25th Street in Chelsea, buying from Jeffrey Lam’s Lam Group. The deed, ACRIS document 2026081800115001, is dated June 1 and recorded August 31, moving title from Chelsea Grand, LLC and Chelsea Grand West, LLC, both at 202 Centre Street, to Manga Chelsea LLC, care of Manga Hotels (US) Inc. at 10 Carlson Court in Toronto. That is about $316,500 per key. An independent rebrand is planned, according to the trade press.

Why it matters

This is the second Manhattan hotel Manga has bought from Lam in roughly 18 months. The first was 54 Watts Street, the 160-key SoHo 54, for $56 million in February 2025, or exactly $350,000 per key. For anyone marking Manhattan hotel product, two arm’s-length trades between the same buyer and the same seller are a far better comp set than one, and the roughly $33,500 per-key spread between them is the number to carry: Chelsea traded about 10 percent below the SoHo basis a year and a half later.

The numbers

The financing recorded in the same batch does not add up to the price. Manga Chelsea recorded a $13,183,632.32 mortgage, document 2026081800115004, and a $5,000,000 mortgage and consolidation, document 2026081800115005, both naming Royal Bank of Canada at 200 Bay Street in Toronto. A third instrument, ASPM 2026081800115003, assigned the prior mortgage from Chelsea Grand to Manga Chelsea. Recorded RBC debt totals $18,183,632.32, or about $18.2 million, against a $50 million deed. Some coverage implies a $50 million loan. The record does not support that figure.

The remaining roughly $31.8 million is either equity or capital that never touches the land records, and ACRIS cannot tell those apart, because only instruments secured by the real property itself record here. The building, per PLUTO, is a class H3 hotel of 55,916 sq ft on 21 floors, built in 2001 on a 5,431 sq ft lot zoned M1-8A/R11, with a built FAR of 10.3 against a 12.0 residential FAR and zero residential units.

What’s next

Lot 71’s debt history explains what this sale unwinds. A $40 million building loan recorded in 2006, a $50 million consolidation plus $19,380,522 of new money in 2016, then a $108,374,000 agreement in January 2024 that cross-collateralized this hotel with 222 Duffield Street in Brooklyn. Lam was running the two as one credit; this trade pulls the Chelsea asset out of that structure.

See our coverage of the Goldman family’s South Beach hotel sale and the New York market.