HM on Location: Yotel opens first dual-brand project

MIAMI — Nearly five months after its soft opening in June, the Yotel Miami celebrated its grand opening on Thursday night. The property, developed as a joint venture between Aria Development Group and Aqarat (otherwise known as the Kuwait Real Estate Co.), is notable for the company as its first dual-brand project, with a mix of 222 traditional hotel guestrooms and 231 YotelPad apartments under one roof. 

Origins

The project began to take shape in the mid-teens, Yotel Chief Development Officer Rohan Thakkar said ahead of the opening. Yotel shareholders Al-Bahar Group and the Kuwait Real Estate Co. developed the project and connected it to the Yotel leadership, which had been eyeing Miami for some time, Yotel CEO Hubert Viriot said. 

The team opted for the city’s downtown area instead of a beachfront development because the city’s “center of gravity” was shifting downtown. “That's where it's all going to happen for the next 10, 20 years,” Viriot said. The brand’s model could work in a smaller footprint, he added, thanks to its “efficient” use of real estate. “We can unlock value that other brands can't because we can put more rooms [on a floor] than most other brands.”  

While the property was always intended to be a mixed-use development, the owners did not select a brand until 2018 when Yotel launched the extended-stay YotelPad concept. “Once we had a product, it made great sense that [we] had both in one building [for] combined operations,” Thakkar said. “That was another appealing fact for our investors—they were able to have one team running the entire building instead of separate teams.” 

The concept, GM Gilberto Garcia-Tuñon said, was developed to attract a range of guests to different products and different price points. “We've got that lane of the hotel guests, we've got the transient people that want a suite—a more expensive, luxurious product, which is what our Pads are—but we also have that long-stay guest opportunity, which is a third lane.” 

The Miami property is Yotel’s sixth location in the U.S. and 21st worldwide. The YotelPad, meanwhile, is only the second location after the one in Park City, Utah. The existing properties for both brands helped inform what the new building would look like, Thakkar said, noting feedback and changing trends that influenced the project. “What you see in the Yotel room here is probably what we'd call our generation two-and-a-half,” he joked. “We're not fully at generation three here because we had to lock in the design at certain points."

Guestrooms 

Global design and engineering firm Stantec oversaw the project’s architecture and interior design. The traditional guestrooms—ranging from 225 square feet to 430 square feet in king, queen and twin categories—are designed to be utilitarian and maximize the use of space at an upper-midscale price point. “We can remove those nonessential facilities or furniture and so forth and make the room smaller than what you would have normally,” Viriot said. “We have removed square meters from the room, and at the end of the day, that's the most expensive part of a real estate project.” 

The brand’s signature “smart bed” is the main feature of each room, and while the wider room width does not make it necessary for the bed to fold up during the day (unlike in some other urban locations), guests in rooms with queen or king beds can get a little extra space by raising the head of the bed. 

The queen and twin guestrooms do not have dedicated bathrooms, but instead have two cubes of frosted glass, one around a shower stall and one around a toilet. The sink is open to the main room, and lighting is controlled by pads on the wall by the door and by the bed. 

The guestrooms also lack some traditional features that upper-midscale guests might expect: The desk in a queen room is small and also serves as a nightstand for the bed. In twin rooms, the narrow desk folds down from beneath the TV. Only the larger king rooms have sofas or additional seating—twin and queen rooms have a pouf that could make extended desk time uncomfortable. 

Extended-Stay

The YotelPad upstairs, on the other hand, is meant to attract guests who might otherwise seek out an Airbnb. “It's one of those ‘if you can't beat them, join them’ type of opportunities,” Garcia-Tuñon said, acknowledging that home-sharing platforms are still disrupting the hospitality industry. “Why not … basically offer a similar concept [to Airbnb] but with a little bit more class and sophistication?” 

The apartments are privately owned condominiums and range from studios to two bedrooms. The apartments sold out faster than any similar development in Miami history, Thakkar said, and some have become the permanent residences of their owners. Other owners have opted to put the apartments back into the hotel’s room stock as extended-stay rentals for nightly or monthly rates. Owners get 70 percent of the room rate when their apartment is rented, and anyone staying in a Pad—guest or owner—can use the hotel’s public spaces and facilities, as well as a dedicated recreational lounge. The apartments have full kitchens with washers and dryers as well as adjustable furniture—Murphy beds that fold down over sofas and bunk beds that turn into desks as needed.

Since Yotel manages both the hotel rooms and the Pads, the suites also can be available as last-minute upgrades, Garcia-Tuñon said. And while many of the traditional guestrooms of the hotel can only accommodate two guests at a time, even the smallest studio Pad can accommodate four. (The two-bedroom suites can accommodate six people.) The price difference between a hotel room and a studio can be around $100, Garcia-Tuñon noted. 

Public Spaces

The hotel has two restaurants: Float on the upstairs pool deck and Mazeh at the entry level. Mazeh also has a grab-and-go station stocked with drinks and products from local vendors. A fitness room with Peloton equipment also is near the pool. 

Upstairs from Mazeh is Komyuniti, a dual-purpose lounge and working space with armchairs, tables and nooks for small gatherings. The hotel also has dedicated meeting rooms for business travelers. (Garcia-Tuñon estimated that as much as half of the hotel’s bookings were for business travelers.)

Next Steps

Beyond the food from local vendors sold at the grab-and-go stand, the hotel is partnering with other businesses in the surrounding areas. The property has set up arrangements with nearby restaurants to give Yotel guests additional perks like free desert or glasses of wine. The team more recently partnered with local hospitality management company Boucher Brothers, which can reserve chairs on nearby beaches for Yotel guests. (The hotel, for now, does not provide transportation to the beach.)  “It's a great opportunity to really promote and stimulate the local community,” Garcia-Tuñon said, pointing out that local businesses have recommended Yotel to their own customers. “It’s a win-win for everybody.”

While the arrangement with Boucher Brothers can help Yotel guests at the beach, Viriot acknowledged the Yotel brand itself could work as a beach hotel. The hotel’s owners and the company’s leadership are exploring opportunities to develop a second Miami property on the beach, he added. 

Beyond another outpost in Miami, Viriot said he would like to see Yotels in Chicago, Nashville, Seattle and Los Angeles. “We're gradually expanding our brand and entering those various markets,” he said.