While most lodging investors and development companies are bypassing new construction and focusing on acquisition opportunities, Briad Lodging Group is taking a different approach.

The Livingston-NJ-based company sold its entire portfolio of 10 hotels on Tuesday to MCR Development for $164 million and now plans to aggressively pursue new construction projects to take advantage of lower construction costs and land prices. In fact, on the same day the deal was announced, Briad broke ground on a 120-room Homewood Suites in Atlantic City/Egg Harbor (NJ).

Briad Lodging Group founder and CEO Brad Honigfeld

Briad founder and CEO Brad Honigfeld expects to have another 10 to 15 projects under contract in the next two years. It would follow Honigfeld’s strategy of building hotels into a portfolio before recapitalizing. Since 1999, Briad has built and operated 23 hotels, roughly $400 million in ground-up real estate, and then sold them in batches of two, 11 and now 10 properties.

“The Briad Lodging Group portfolio would be impossible to duplicate today and we knew it would be strategically attractive to an investor looking for the best extended-stay and focus-service brands, clustering and scale,” says Ron Danko, executive vice president, CBRE New York City Hotel Group, which brokered the deal that will likely be one of the largest of the year.

The portfolio was made up entirely of Hilton and Marriott brands (four Residence Inns, three Homewood Suites, one Courtyard, one Hilton Garden Inn and one Spring Hill Suites), all located in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

“I held these longer than I would have preferred because of the financial crisis,” says Honigfeld, whose company owns and operates 70 T.G.I. Friday’s and 42 Wendy’s fast-food restaurants. “I couldn’t strike at the pricing I thought the assets warranted, so I held them a little longer than I normally would.”

Three of the 10 hotels opened this year and Honigfeld says two had ramped up beyond expectations and the entire portfolio was in good standing. Honigfeld was pleased with the $149,000-per-key-sales price, but says the assets would have commanded better prices if sold individually.

The Hilton Garden Inn in Milford, CT was one of 10 hotels sold by Briad Lodging Group.

“I decided to take this opportunity to shed all the assets and aggressively be able to develop numerous types of projects,” Honigfeld says.

The average age of the portfolio of 1,100 rooms is less than two years. New York-based MCR was happy to grow its portfolio to 16 hotels owned and operated with 1,850 rooms in nine states.

“These assets are high quality additions to our portfolio, especially given their alignment with two of the strongest brands in the hotel industry,” says Tyler Morse, MCR’s CEO. “This acquisition underscores our strategy of targeting quality properties in markets with high barriers to entry. We will continue to aggressively pursue strategic acquisitions.”

Briad, on the other hand, will look to rebuild its portfolio the old-fashioned way with the advantage of its own construction services division. “Same sector, same brands, because no one is developing from the ground up,” says Honigfeld, who’s wiling to use his own balance sheet to build in similar markets throughout the Northeast. “Most can’t get loans of any nature from banks that require significant sponsors.”