Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has been selected by the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority to operate the new 500-room convention center hotel. The Sheraton San Juan Convention Center Hotel will open in 2007, and will be located adjacent to the 580,000 square-foot Puerto Rico Convention Center, which is scheduled to open in 2005.
The hotel will include 63,000 square feet of meeting and banquet facilities, a 10,000-square foot spa, a selection of restaurants and several outdoor pools. With design elements of an urban resort, this development will also include 50,000-square feet of retail space, an eight-screen cinema complex, a 14,000-square foot casino and a 25,000-square foot multi-level nightclub/entertainment venue with a music hall for live performances.

Garfield Traub Development LLC and Interlink Group are developing the $175-million mixed-use revitalization project which will anchor the new convention center. On the hotel project, Starwood is partnering with Garfield Traub, one of the leading developers of headquarters hotels and other essential public facilities, and Interlink Group, a prominent residential, commercial and hotel development company in Puerto Rico with more than 27 years experience. In a similar project, Starwood and Garfield Traub developed the Sheraton Overland Park at the Convention Center in Overland Park, Kansas.

“The Sheraton brand represents an international icon for service excellence and we are honored to have been selected to serve the City of San Juan to operate their Convention Center Hotel,” stated Norman MacLeod, executive vice president, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts. “No other lodging company brings a level of operating experience for destination and convention hotels than Starwood. Sheraton has long been a leader in the convention market in major gateway cities throughout the world as evidenced by our selection here and by the City of Phoenix to operate a 1,000-room convention center hotel there. Our hotels and resorts all capitalize on Sheraton’s strength in the convention and international markets.”

The Sheraton San Juan Convention Center Hotel will feature all of the brand’s signature amenities and services including the Sheraton Service Promise guarantee and the brand’s highly acclaimed Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Bed(sm). The newly-introduced Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Bed is a luxurious nine-layer custom designed bed that features an 11.5 inch thick, high coil count Sealy Posturepedic(R) Plush Top mattress, down and allergy sensitive pillows and crisp cotton sheets.

The $415-million convention center is currently under construction on 113 acres on the peninsula of Isla Grande next to historic Old San Juan and is scheduled for completion in mid-2005. Combined, the Sheraton hotel and Puerto Rico Convention Center will become the centerpiece of the Puerto Rico Convention District and will enable the island to better capitalize on the existing tourism appeal of the island by attracting groups with 2,500 to 4,500 conventioneers - and as many as 10,000 conventioneers for a city-wide event. The project also allows for future plans to expand the convention center to 1.3-million square feet at a later time. Nonetheless, it is the largest mixed-use commercial real estate project in Puerto Rico.

The development team for the mixed-use project also includes: RTKL International Ltd., the largest volume hospitality architectural firm in the Americas; Ray Architects, one of the pre-eminent architectural firms in Puerto Rico; and UBS Financial Services Incorporated of Puerto Rico (UBS), the leading investment banker in the Caribbean.
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