In a sale-and-leaseback deal, French hotel real estate investment trust Covivio, via its Covivio Hotels division, has acquired a forthcoming 228-room (834 bed) Meininger-branded hotel in Porto from Eiffage Immobilier Portugal.
The transaction has a price tag of €31.6 million ($37 million), €138,596 ($162,329) per key or €37,890 ($44,378) per bed.
The hotel is to start construction this quarter, and Meininger will operate the property under a 20-year lease.
The sale will be effective when the hotel opens, which is slated for the second half of 2028, according to a Covivio news release about the deal.
The development is in Porto’s Bonfim neighborhood, which is getting some new life in the form of a shopping-center-to-office conversion and new hotels.
The nearby train station of Campanhã is being redeveloped to to a transit hub with high-speed train, regular train, subway and bus connectivity.
According to a July 2025 press release from the European Commission, the European Investment Bank signed an €875 million deal to start construction of a section of the high-speed rail line between Porto and Oiã, 50 miles south of Porto.
The EIB release added that “this is the first tranche of the total €3 billion financing package approved by the EIB in 2024 to support the construction of the new high-speed connection between Portugal’s two largest cities,” Porto and Portuguese capital Lisbon.
The deal is not Covivio’s first agreement with developer Eiffage in Porto.
In July 2025, Covivio acquired the 176-room B&B Porto Centro Massarelos from Eiffage for approximately €15 million, according to CoStar.
At the Atlantic Ocean Hotel Investors’ Summit held in Madrid this month, panelists and attendees said that despite traditional lenders still struggling to understand the hostel and hostel-hybrid sector, more banks are showing interest.
They said one concern is whether there is comfort within the finance community of the reputational side of the niche, that is, hostels and hostel-hybrids contain shared rooms, but they said any guardedness will be overcome with time as performance continues to improve.
Also, they said, the niche has a reputation for being the first opportunity to meet a traveler across what might be a lifetime of journeys for both leisure and business.
Covivio and Meininger also are partners in three other hotels — the 169-room Meininger Hotel Lyon Center Berthelot; 172-room Meininger Hotel Olympiapark Munich; and 249-room Meininger Hotel Paris Porte de Vincennes.