One of San Francisco's most recognized hotels , famous for its cavernous atrium and revolving rooftop restaurant , is changing hands after its outgoing owner added rooms and spent $50 million on renovations to reinvigorate the 53-year-old property. 

Sunstone Hotel Investors announced Tuesday that it has sold the Hyatt Regency San Francisco hotel located along the Embarcadero. The Orange County hotel investor wrote in  a release that it had sold the property to Blackstone Real Estate for a gross sale price of $279 million. 

Sunstone owned the Hyatt Regency for 13 years, netting $16.5 million for its investment. "The sale is consistent with our strategy of more actively managing the portfolio to capitalize on higher private market values and recycle the proceeds into more accretive options on a risk-adjusted basis," Sunstone CEO Bryan Giglia said in a statement. 

A modest profit for such a hefty investment, the sale shines in comparison with the recent exchange of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and neighboring Parc 55, which sold last fall for less than half of their highest valuation.

Sunstone purchased the Hyatt Regency for $262.5 million in 2013. The hotel had 802 rooms at the time and was in the middle of an identity crisis. After opening in 1973, the Hyatt Regency was celebrated for its futuristic design centered on a pyramidal lobby and rooftop restaurant that spins over Market Street. The atrium was once recognized by Guinness World Records for being the largest hotel lobby, but its jagged interior and lofty urbanism  earned criticism decades after the 1970s. The hotel's iconic umbrella-shaped glass elevators have been featured in films including "The Towering Inferno" and "High Anxiety," and more recently, they inspired a local artist to create an ambient album based on their movement. 

Sunstone ushered in overdue updates, pumping in $50 million to modernize rooms during the pandemic downtime in tourism, adding 19 rooms and repairing the floor of the Equinox restaurant to once again rotate in the sky. 

Blackstone, a New York behemoth for real estate financial services , is on a buying spree in San Francisco. 

The company snatched the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SoMa in 2024 and then picked up the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco last year. More recently, Blackstone acquired the luxurious Stanly Ranch resort in Napa after its previous owner was issued a $230 million delinquency notice. 

Blackstone's hospitality platform BRE Hotels & Resorts is involved with a dozen hotels in California, including the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego. It has two other San Francisco properties in its portfolio : Hilton Garden Inn San Francisco Airport North and Hotel Kabuki.