JRK Property Holdings, through its $350-million hospitality fund, has acquired a two-property, 275-key Hyatt-branded hotel portfolio in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from the PRISA Group for an undisclosed price.
The portfolio comprises two select-service hotels located within the Puerto Rico Convention District: the 149-room Hyatt Place San Juan and 126-room Hyatt House San Juan. Developed by the seller within the past eight years, both properties have been recently renovated including lobby refreshes, updated F&B outlets and guestroom and corridor improvements. Both properties feature resort-style pools, fitness centers and meeting and event space.
The hotels benefit from numerous demand drivers including their proximity (one block) from the 600,000-sq.-ft. Puerto Rico Convention Center and the Distrito T-Mobile, a 476,000-sq.-ft. entertainment, dining and performance venue.
JRK’s Hospitality Fund focuses on full- and select-service hotels for opportunistic and value-add investments. The fund targets transactions of more than $25 million and up to $1+ billion for portfolios, which would be made through its fully discretionary fund comprised of high-net-worth individuals, or through joint ventures with strategic partners.
This is the first investment outside the continental U.S. for JRK, which hopes to build its hotel portfolio in Puerto Rico, according to Shaan Bhatia, head of hotel investments.
“San Juan is one of the strongest RevPAR markets in the U.S., with consistently strong occupancy and a healthy growth trajectory,” said Bhatia. “The expected rate cuts by the Fed in 2024 should stimulate discretionary spending, which would only serve to improve Puerto Rico’s already resilient hospitality fundamentals.”
Daniel Lippman, JRK president, added, “The Puerto Rico hotels deliver tremendous going-in cash flow to our investors on new institutional quality construction while offering several levers for additional value creation. We’re thrilled with the continued expansion of our national hotel portfolio and look forward to finding similarly compelling opportunities in 2024.”
San Juan trails only New York City and the Hawaiian island of Oahu in average occupancy, commanding a 74.7% average occupancy rate since 1994, according to JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group, which marketed the portfolio on behalf of the seller.
Members of the JLL team included Andrew Dickey, Maciej Polek and Mark Fisher.
