Driftwood Enters California Market with Hotel Buy

Miami-based investor Driftwood Acquisitions and Development has made its foray into the California market with the purchase of a San Diego hotel. Driftwood acquired 353-hotel Marriott Mission Valley in San Diego for $85.7 million and plans to develop an additional 150-room hotel on the site. The investor has been looking to invest in the California market for years, but until now hadn’t been able to find a hotel property that penciled, according to the company’s internal underwriting standards.

“We’ve been wanting to get into the California Market for a very long time but we could never find hotel deals that penciled for us based on our underwriting hurdles. This time we found this great opportunity that met all our criteria,” Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of Driftwood Acquisitions and Development, tells GlobeSt.com. “As per the cycle, we look at the fundamentals of each particular market. In this case the hotel is in a great location, with a great brand, and in a market that is already strong and getting stronger.”

The Marriott Mission Valley checked all of the boxes for Driftwood. Rodriguez names the brand, box and location as the asset’s attractive characteristics. “It is a great brand, great box, really good location in a strong market, and it had excess land where we could develop a second hotel,” he adds. The new hotel provides significant upside. The plan is to build a 130,000-square-foot, 150-room hotel on a 1.75-acre parcel with construction slated for 2021.