Oracle buys San Mateo Marriott

Oracle Corp. has purchased the 476-room Marriott Hotel in San Mateo for $132 million, in part to use for training its direct-sales staff.

The hotel will continue to operate as a Marriott and be open to the public, even during an extensive renovation that the Redwood City software company plans to undertake.

“We were finding it more and more difficult to find space to conduct our training,” said Mike Bangs, Oracle’s vice president for headquarters real estate and facilities.

“We generally hire college graduates and train them for two to three weeks,” up to 300 people at a time, two or three times per year, Bangs said. The company likes to house them near its headquarters, which is about 4 miles away. It also will use the hotel for other company events.

The hotel is on South Amphlett Boulevard near Highways 92 and 101.

Bangs said the deal, which closed Wednesday, is also part of Oracle’s expansion into the hospitality business. In 2014, it purchased Micros Systems, which provides software for hotels and restaurants.

The hotel was purchased through Hospitality Investment LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle. The previous owner was Atrium Plaza, a limited liability company owned by Tarsadia Investments of Newport Beach (Orange County).

This is Oracle’s first hotel purchase. Larry Ellison, the company’s executive chairman, personally owns several hotels, including the Four Seasons Resort on the Hawaiian island of Lanai and the Epiphany Hotel in Palo Alto.

The San Mateo Marriott is operated by Evolution Hospitality under the Marriott franchise, Bangs said.

Evolution will continue to operate the hotel and it will remain a Marriott under a long-term franchise agreement that is transferable if Oracle decides to sell it. Bangs would not say whether Oracle plans to purchase any more hotels.

The Marriott also has contracts with airlines that use the hotel to house crews, which also will continue.

Oracle rival Salesforce has also used the hotel for training and to house visitors to its Dreamforce conference. Bangs could not say whether that will continue.