Owner of Marlowe, Onyx hotels will buy Nine Zero

Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC, of San Francisco, yesterday agreed to purchase the 189-room Nine Zero, a boutique hotel on Tremont Street developed by Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. of Boston, for about $71 million, a Kimpton executive said.

Nine Zero, which opened in 2002, is one of several so-called boutique hotels that have debuted in Boston, emphasizing style and idiosyncratic design to stand out from the chains.

''We think it's a great addition to our family of hotels in the Boston market and the East Coast in general," said Thomas LaTour, chief executive of Kimpton. He said he expected the deal to close soon.

Kimpton developed the Hotel Marlowe in Cambridge and the Onyx Hotel, with its Britney Spears Foundation room, in the historic Bulfinch Triangle of Boston. The company operates about 40 hotels, including 11 in San Francisco and six in Washington, D.C.

Peter Palandjian, chairman of Intercontinental, confirmed his company has chosen a buyer. ''If we do close, we're pleased that one of the premier operators in the country of boutique hotels will assuredly take over what we created," he said. Palandjian said the sale would represent a ''fantastic double-digit" return on investments made by union and pension-fund operators.

Negotiations last year over a sale of the hotel to a different potential buyer fell through.

Kimpton had also sought to develop the Ames Building at 1 Court St. in Boston but was outbid.

Nine Zero is on the site of the former Dini's Seafood restaurant, across from the Granary Burying Ground; the hotel's Spire Bar has become a popular gathering place for singles.

Intercontinental, a real estate investment company, has about $1.5 billion under management.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.