AWH Partners announced the acquisition of the Hotel Trio Healdsburg, a 122-key, all-suite hotel in the heart of Sonoma wine country.
Since opening in 2018, the soft-branded Residence Inn has distinguished itself as the only Marriott-branded property in northern Sonoma and the second largest hotel in Healdsburg, one of the region’s most sought-after leisure destinations.
This marks the firm’s first acquisition for its Strategic Income Fund launched in late 2025 and validates AWH’s data-driven AI-enhanced approach to identifying high-potential investment assets in premium submarkets.
“This announcement further demonstrates our ability to pinpoint attractive opportunities through our data-driven AI-supported research platform. Having aggregated more than fifteen years of investment and market data, we weigh layer data-driven findings with our own deep understanding of markets and long-term economic indicators to identify the right locations and the best properties,” explained Russ Flicker, AWH Partners co-founder and partner. “Hotel Trio met our criteria as a recent-vintage, high-quality asset ideally located in one of the country’s most affluent leisure destinations with a long runway for growth given the backdrop of recovery and expansion in the greater Bay Area.”
The purchase price of $38,000,000, or $311,475 per key, represents a substantial discount, particularly vis-à-vis the estimated $500,000 plus per key replacement cost in Sonoma County, a prime submarket that is constrained by the number of hospitality properties available to serve high visitor demand. AWH projects this investment to average annual dividend of 8% plus and a projected net levered IRR of 17.40%.
“We see a strong base case and compelling upside cases for our Hotel Trio investment, as the greater Bay Area realizes strong growth driven by AI and tech investment writ large. Because of its high barrier of entry, there’s a scarcity of rooms in the Sonoma region, and Hotel Trio provides a high-quality differentiated product at a price point that is attractive for a broad cross-section of visitors to Sonoma. The all-suite upscale nature of this hotel, combined with Marriott branding, makes it an extremely competitive asset,” said Chad Cooley, AWH Partners co-founder and partner.
This deal marks the second major acquisition by AWH Partners since June 2022, notwithstanding its evaluation of thousands of investment opportunities and tender of hundreds of offers over that same period. The slow pace of acquisitions is a testament to AWH’s disciplined investment methodology. Upon closing, the property will be operated by AWH Partners’ wholly owned subsidiary Spire Hospitality.
“As decreasing financing costs and widening cap rates continue to align, we anticipate more attractive opportunities in the future that will offer strong risk-adjusted returns, said Jon Rosenfeld, AWH Partners co-founder and partner. “We also see a clear path to normalization given the city’s tourism levels, expected continue growth of the Bay Area, and the enhancements of Spire Hospitality as operators.”
With its 425 wineries, Sonoma County has some 10.3 million visitors a year, with almost half staying overnight and visitor spending reached $2.44 billion in 2024. The Healdsburg Municipal Airport served a record number of passengers, a 20.5% increase from the year before. Healdsburg offers visitors 92 wineries—14 in-town—and a historic, walkable downtown. A 90-minute drive from San Francisco, the town was voted the eighth best small city in America in Conde Nast’s Readers’ Choice Awards in 2024.
In November 2024, AWH Partners announced its acquisition of a dual-branded Residence Inn/Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel property in Broomfield, Colo., a fast-growing community between Denver and Boulder. The deal represented the firm’s first post-COVID acquisition in its targeted income strategy and was sourced with the help of AWH’s proprietary data platform. The 212-key property is now managed by Spire Hospitality.
