RTC Makes First Deal in Program to Quicken Sales : Thrifts: A $500-million package of hotels and office buildings was bought by a partnership of U.S. and Canadian real estate investors and developers.

The federal agency handling the savings and loan cleanup announced Wednesday a special $500-million deal to sell a package of hotels and office buildings to a partnership of wealthy American and Canadian real estate investors and developers.

The proposed sale is the first negotiated as part of an ambitious effort to stimulate sales of properties from failed S&Ls; in a depressed real estate market. Under the program, the Resolution Trust Corp. will package $8 billion worth of properties into specially designed portfolios for purchase by sophisticated investors.

The RTC hopes the portfolio approach will enable it to dispose of properties it has been unable to sell for periods ranging from six months to two years. The agency has more than 45,000 properties, including 12,622 single-family homes, 1,495 office buildings, 196 hotels and motels and 5,329 condominium units, according to a Times survey of RTC records.

“This is the first major transaction in a series of portfolio sales to be completed under a new pilot program,” said L. William Seidman, chairman of both the RTC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The deal announced Wednesday was negotiated with Patriot American Investors, a New York limited partnership. Among the partners in Patriot American are John Daniels of Toronto, a founder of Cadillac-Fairview, a major developer of shopping centers and office buildings; William L. Mack, a developer and investor in commercial properties in New York and New Jersey; George Mann of Toronto, chairman of Lincoln Savings Bank in New York and chairman of Union Gas Ltd., a natural gas utility in Canada, and Paul Nussbaum, a New York real estate attorney and investor.

“Our group is composed of very experienced and professional property managers confident . . . they can turn these properties around,” said Len Rubin, a Washington attorney for the partnership.

“The RTC wanted to sell a balanced portfolio to us. So we didn’t have the opportunity to select only the best in the inventory. To pick a good property, we have to agree to take a bad one,” Rubin said.

The partnership selected 85 office buildings and about 30 hotels. The partnership has agreed to pay a total of $500 million, of which $335 million would go for the office buildings and $135 million for the hotels.

Under the terms of the portfolio program, the RTC is insisting that 20% of the hotel funds and 25% of the office building funds are earmarked for properties that are losing money. The intent is to ensure that less attractive properties are sold along with choice assets.

The full list of properties will not be disclosed until the deal is completed. But the RTC disclosed a sample selection of real estate likely to be in the pool to be purchased by the partnership. It includes the Grand Butte Hotel, a 262-room resort in Crested Butte, Colo., and the Pomona Office Tower, a 124,000-square-foot office complex.

Mack has been an active donor to political candidates, with contributions of $32,000 to federal and political action committees in the past four years. He has donated $2,000 each to two members of the Senate Banking Committee, Alphonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and Connie Mack (R-Fla.).