The Moscow city government is to sell the downtown-located Metropol luxury hotel at auction this summer, a source in the state-run Auction House of the Russian Federation told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
The starting price for the hotel, which has a total area over 39,000 square meters, will be 8.6 billion rubles ($296.6 million).
"We expect the auction will be announced by mid-June 2012," the source said.
The Metropol, opened in 1901, has 362 rooms with antique furniture and unique paintings, including 72 suites, two restaurants and nine banquet halls.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who replaced the long-serving Luzhkov in October 2010, has inherited a $5 billion budget deficit and has initiated a massive privatization of municipal property.
Last December the city government sold the nearby National hotel, a historic landmark in the heart of the capital, to B&N Bank co-owner Mikhail Gutseriyev for about 4.674 billion rubles ($148 million).
