San Juan, Puerto Rico

Client:

PRISA Group

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Hotel Overview​​​

Marketed today as One Distrito, the $117 million project broke ground in April 2025, bringing one of the first constituents of the Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy brand to fast growing Puerto Rico Convention Center District in San Juan.  Located one block from the DISTRITO T-Mobile, the development pairs the 109-unit aparthotel with One Distrito Residences, an eight-story 38-condominium residential tower, and a resort-style pool and fitness center. The project advances PRISA Group's broader vision to transform the Convention Center District into a premier urban resort destination, building on the firm's prior development of the Aloft, Hyatt House, and Hyatt Place hotels, and the Distrito T-Mobile entertainment complex. ​

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Scope of Work​​

Our firm was engaged to conduct market research, recommend an optimal unit mix, prepare hotel financial projections, and produce a written report to support the Sponsor's underwriting, franchise negotiations, and financing efforts for a hybrid aparthotel concept.  At the time, Marriott had not yet placed a single property into operation anywhere in the world. The assignment required us to assess the performance of a pioneering apart-hotel concept within a market where most of the professionally managed short-term rental supply was concentrated to the beach-adjacent Condado submarket.​

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Specific parameters of the engagement included the following:

• Gathering information regarding the level and characteristics of demand likely to be generated for the proposed aparthotel with studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units.

• Evaluating the new Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy concept (launched in November 2022) by analyzing the brand standards deck, target audience positioning, product requirements, and rate-positioning guidance from Marriott's franchise development and brand teams.

• Benchmarking the new brand against the broader serviced-apartment and aparthotel sector in other beach markets, including venture-backed entrants such as Sonder, Mint House, Placemakr (formerly WhyHotel), and Marriott's own Marriott Executive Apartments and Homes & Villas by Marriott platforms, to triangulate relative performance.

• Identifying and analyzing the traditional competitive hotel supply across the Convention Center District, Condado, and Isla Verde submarkets to form a basis for the Subject’s studio unit positioning.

• Profiling Puerto Rico's island-wide short-term rental demand trend, including its rise from approximately 3 percent of accommodated lodging demand in 2015 to roughly 39 percent in 2022.

• Quantifying the professionally managed short-term rental (STR) competitive supply of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units using AirDNA data, isolating the comparable professionally managed upper upscale and luxury rentals in targeted zip codes to inform the Subject’s demand penetration and rate positioning by unit type.

• Synthesizing rate-parity benchmarks from Marriott's systemwide ADRs for the Residence Inn, Marriott, and JW Marriott brands to triangulate where one-bedroom Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy units would price in the San Juan market.

• Conducting a multi-market STR ADR premium analysis across 12 leisure-oriented beach markets in the southeastern United States to quantify the typical two-bedroom and three-bedroom rate premium over one-bedroom units, a methodology developed specifically to defend ADR assumptions for unit types not represented in the traditional hotel competitive set.

• Reviewing the proposed facilities program and making recommendations to improve its ability to best meet the needs of the market.

• Developing ten-year estimates of occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR by unit type.

• Preparing a ten-year USALI-format projection of revenues and expenses reflecting the brand's prescribed light-staffing operating model, including limited front desk hours, no on-site food and beverage, no meeting space, and weekly (or upon check-out) housekeeping.

• Preparing an investment summary presenting unleveraged and leveraged returns based on Sponsor-provided development costs and market-oriented financing terms and exit metrics.

• Delivering all research, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations in a written report suitable for presentation to franchise development executive, debt sources, and Sponsor-side stakeholders.

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Results​​

• Woodworth Core Group established a defensible analytical framework for underwriting a first-of-its-kind branded aparthotel by triangulating between Marriott systemwide brand ADRs scaled for the San Juan market, the local short-term rental competitive set disaggregated by unit type, and a multi-market STR analysis across 12 comparable leisure-oriented beach markets, producing defensible ADR and occupancy projections.

• We provided an independent third-party validation of market and financial potential that supported the Sponsor's franchise discussions with Marriott International, contributing to the project's selection by Marriott as one of the first ground-up Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy developments in the Americas.

• PRISA Group officially broke ground on the project in April 2025 with Banco Popular de Puerto Rico providing financing. The project is slated to open in the third quarter of 2027.

• The residential condominium component achieved a near 100 percent presale to local families prior to groundbreaking, validating the Sponsor's mixed-use thesis.

• The project is expected to have a positive economic impact, projected to support 309 direct construction jobs and more than 900 indirect and induced jobs during the construction phase, and 129 jobs during the operational phase.

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