A 409-acre resort complex tucked near Orlando's tourist corridor is changing hands for $1.38 billion, in what's being called the largest non-gaming resort transaction in U.S. history. Ryman Hospitality Properties has agreed to buy the Grande Lakes Orlando Resort, home to a 1,010-room JW Marriott and a 582-room Ritz-Carlton, from current owner Trinity Investments. The deal marks Ryman's first foray into the luxury hotel space beyond its longtime core business of Gaylord-branded convention hotels.
According to Bloomberg, Ryman plans to fund the acquisition partly by selling 5.1 million shares, with cash on hand and debt covering the rest as needed. A statement from Trinity Investments reported by Business Wire notes that Trinity originally purchased the property in December 2018 for $870 million, backed by Elliott Investment Management, meaning the sale represents a substantial gain for the Honolulu-founded investment firm.
An SEC Form 8-K filing shows the $1.38 billion price reflects a 12.5x Adjusted EBITDAre multiple on trailing-twelve-month property earnings of $110 million through June 30, 2026, working out to a 6.6% capitalization rate. Ryman has placed a $50 million escrow deposit upon executing the agreement, and the deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, per SEC records.
What's Included in the Deal
Beyond its 1,592 total guest rooms across both towers, the resort includes 320,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, 14 food and beverage outlets, and a 40,000-square-foot spa with 40 treatment rooms — the kind of expansive group-meeting infrastructure central to Ryman's investment strategy, the Business Wire statement details. The property also features an 18-hole championship golf course designed by Greg Norman at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, which hosts the PGA Tour's annual PNC Championship, a tournament pairing 20 major golf champions with family members, according to the Golf Channel.
In 2024, The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes earned a Michelin Key as part of the Michelin Guide's inaugural U.S. hotel rating system — the hospitality industry's answer to a Michelin star for restaurants, the Business Wire statement notes. Since taking ownership in late 2018, Trinity poured roughly $150 million into capital upgrades across guest rooms, meeting facilities, public spaces, and waterpark amenities, a program that helped sustain high occupancy and rate performance through the post-pandemic recovery, according to Investing.com.
A Deepening Relationship With Trinity Investments
This is the second major resort transaction between Trinity Investments and Ryman within 15 months, following Ryman's June 2025 purchase of the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa from Trinity, per StreetInsider. Trinity has also been active elsewhere in Florida, having sold EAST Miami to Blackstone in September 2025 and acquired the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort this past May — moves that track with the firm's shift of its corporate headquarters from Honolulu to Miami, a transition Hoodline previously reported.
Ryman CEO Mark Fioravanti said adding Grande Lakes establishes a nationwide rotational network for the JW Marriott brand while introducing Ritz-Carlton as the company's first luxury brand platform, according to a statement carried by GlobeNewswire. Ryman expects Marriott International to continue operating both hotels under long-term management agreements after the sale closes.
Orlando's Pull for Group Travel
The acquisition lands in a market institutional investors have been circling for years. Orlando was named Cvent's No. 1 meeting destination in North America for 2026 — its 11th time earning that title — with 14 local convention hotels ranking among Cvent's top meeting properties nationally, according to ConventionSouth. Visit Orlando has attributed the region's group-travel growth to major expansions at the convention center and airport.
Ryman already has a substantial footprint in Central Florida through its 1,718-room Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, which completed a $134 million renovation in 2024 and offers 467,000 square feet of meeting space. Ryman investor disclosures note minimal customer overlap between Gaylord Palms and Grande Lakes due to differing customer profiles, suggesting the two properties are positioned to serve distinct segments of the region's group-travel market rather than compete for the same bookings.
The Orlando purchase follows a stretch of major moves for Ryman, whose Nashville flagship Gaylord Opryland recently topped out on a major expansion, a project Hoodline covered in detail. The company's stock had also held steady after a strong first-quarter earnings beat driven by group booking growth, as Hoodline reported in May.
