The Lively Fukuoka Hakata is located near Fukuoka’s primary rail hub (Image: Alyssa Partners)
The biggest city on southern Japan’s Kyushu island is the site of a major hotel deal with Alyssa Partners announcing the purchase of a 224 room property in central Fukuoka.
The investment manager partnered with Mitsubishi HC Capital Realty to acquire The Lively Fukuoka Hakata hotel in the city’s Hakata ward, as the Tokyo-based residential specialist added a hotel property to its lists of recent purchases.
“We are excited to enter into this new investment with Mitsubishi HC Capital Realty and increasing our hospitality portfolio, a segment in which we continue to have strong convictions,” said Chedli Boujellabia, CEO and co-chief investment officer at Alyssa. “With the highest population growth rate in Japan and increasing visitor numbers both domestic and international, Fukuoka and The Lively Hotel in particular are very well positioned to benefit from such upward trend”
The purchase represents Alyssa’s latest tie-up with Japanese capital and the second time in the past half year that it has ventured beyond the residential sector for a major acquisition.
Beyond Apartments
In addition to its 224 rooms, The Lively Fukuoka Hakata has 114 sleeping pods and is located within a minute’s walk of the Nakasu Kawabata subway station on Fukuoka’s Hakozaki and Kūkō lines. The property is sited 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) from Hakata station, Fukuoka’s main rail hub and 4.5 kilometres from the city’s airport.
Alyssa’s Chedli Boujellabia at the Mingtiandi Tokyo Forum in November
Alyssa and Mitsubishi HC acquired the hotel from Morgan Stanley Capital, according to market sources, while the buyers declined to identify the seller or provide financial details of the transaction.
Formed through the merger of Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Company Limited and Hitachi Capital Corporation in 2021, Mitsubishi HC specialises in renovating properties and revitalising urban communities, according to its business.
The property is one of three Lively hotels, in addition to locations in Tokyo and Osaka, with the brand representing the flagship line of the eponymous hotel group, which also operates properties under the Unwind, Slash, Estinate, Graphy and Millennials marques across Japan.
A 12 square metre (129 square foot) standard room in The Lively Fukuoka Hakata is available on popular hotel websites for around $65 per night, with the property also featuring co-working space, banquet facilities, a restaurant and a bar.
In December of last year the firm teamed up with China’s JD Property for its first warehouse acquisition, acquiring a pair of warehouses from GLP which had an appraised value of JPY 35 billion.
Southern Hospitality
With Fukuoka ranking as Japan’s sixth largest urban hub, the city is the closest gateway to Korea and the Asian mainland.
The city was the site of Japan’s largest hotel deal of 2024, with Japan Hotel REIT, a Tokyo-listed property trust managed by Singapore’s SC Capital Partners picking up the Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk from Mizuho Leasing for JPY 64.4 billion, after the financial intermediary had acquired the 1,053-key property from GIC a few months earlier.
During December Japan Hotel REIT also sold a Fukuoka hospitality property to Singapore-based investment manager Risa Partners for JPY 4.6 billion.
In November Goldman Sachs Alternatives, a unit of the Manhattan investment bank’s asset management unit, acquired a set of Fukuoka apartments from SGX-listed CapitaLand Ascott Trust for JPY 12.7 billion.
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