The Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority has renamed its Isla Grande and Miramar waterfront the Harbor District and announced $24 million in park and sports projects under the new brand. Some of the work behind it has federal funding and a schedule. Some of it is still a proposal.
The Harbor District in San Juan was announced Thursday, Oct. 22, by Verónica Ferraiuoli, executive director of the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority, alongside developers PRISA Group and Interlink. The brand covers the Puerto Rico Convention Center, the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseo, the Antiguo Casino de Puerto Rico and the district’s grounds, along with planned residential, hotel, recreational and commercial projects, under the themes “Work, Play and Live,” according to News is my Business. El Nuevo Día reported that the identity extends from Bahía Urbana to waterfront land in Miramar that the Authority has not yet redeveloped.
Projects named in the announcement are Bahía Urbana, Bayfront Park, Bay Harbor Village, Homewood Suites by Hilton, One Distrito and Opus Miramar. The Authority said they are in different stages of planning and development.
Federal funding for the Harbor District in San Juan
Ferraiuoli said the first work the public will see is pedestrian access connecting the Convention Center district with Bahía Urbana, including a boardwalk, and that construction will begin before the end of the year, El Vocero reported. El Vocero noted the work had been announced in January. She put the federal funding at $130 million in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery money.
The Authority’s own procurement documents describe the program behind that money. A May 7, 2025 request for proposals from the Authority seeks architectural and engineering firms to design “the improvements to the Pedestrian Access and a new bridge at the entrance of Old San Juan.” It states that “funds in the amount of $137,147,665.00 were allocated” under the Investment Portfolio for Growth, or IPG, program for the “Navy Pier / Bahía Urbana Project,” and says the work is subject to the National Environmental Policy Act and HUD environmental review regulations. A February 2026 request for quotations covers a sewer study for Fernández Juncos Avenue and its connectors, about 6,230 linear feet from the point in front of Pier 7 to a point ahead of Navy Frontier and 5th Street, as part of the avenue’s final design.
The IPG program is run by the Puerto Rico Department of Housing and has a total allocation of $800 million in hurricane recovery funds. Its stated purpose is large-scale development projects that create or retain jobs for low- and moderate-income workers after hurricanes Irma and Maria. Its application period ended Sept. 20, 2021, according to the department’s program page.
Ferraiuoli told Caribbean Business the federal funds are also meant to improve Fernández Juncos Avenue, including its sidewalks, power lines and bicycle access. She said the governor created an interagency technical panel to coordinate Bahía Urbana’s reconstruction and infrastructure work, and that piers six, seven and eight are in development.
Housing and hotels
PRISA Group CEO Federico Stubbe Jr. said the company has invested close to $550 million in the district. At One Distrito, he said, the 38 residences are sold, with a waiting list of 1,400 interested buyers. Stubbe said home sale prices would range from $300,000 to $800,000, aimed at two-income professional households. “We have to be part of the solution, of providing attainable housing for Puerto Rico’s professional class. We don’t want them to keep leaving,” he said, as quoted by Caribbean Business.
Vanessa Di Mari, Interlink’s executive vice president, said the housing planned at the Navy Frontier Pier parcel will be aimed at the professional working class. She said she did not have a sale price but that it would be “close to a million.” El Vocero reported that residences being developed around the district range from $875,000 to $11.4 million.
PRISA’s Homewood Suites by Hilton and Hampton by Hilton project would add 257 rooms in what Stubbe called the first dual-brand hotel in a single structure. He said he hopes it opens before the end of the year. Ferraiuoli said that if the site consultation for Bahía Urbana is approved, about 500 rooms would be added to the roughly 1,700 available today, Caribbean Business reported. The rear section of the district is in a request-for-proposals process for future development.
Parks and sports
DL, LLC, a PRISA Group affiliate, was selected through the Authority’s PRCCDA-2026-01 request for information to develop Distrito Park, a roughly $4 million public park beside the Convention Center on the Patria Yards site. It would include green areas, a central plaza with an event stage, playgrounds, a dog park and commercial spaces, plus a carousel, an ice cream shop and miniature golf. Most of it would be free, with charges for certain attractions. PRISA expects to open the park in the first quarter of 2028, Caribbean Business reported.
Distrito Sports Hub, a PRISA development estimated at $20 million, would have eight covered pickleball courts, four outdoor padel courts, space for beach tennis, soccer and basketball, and duckpin bowling. Caribbean Business reported it is expected to open in the first half of 2027.
Separately, PRISA Presents will bring a 30-show Cirque du Soleil residency to the district’s Music Hall from February to April 2027, a production of more than $10 million for which Cirque estimates a $63 million economic impact, as Caribbean Business has reported.
A district two decades in the making
When Caribbean Business reported on the project in September 2004, ahead of the Convention Center’s opening, the $415 million facility on a 113-acre site in Isla Grande was meant to anchor more than $1.3 billion in public and private investment, with full build-out targeted for 2012. The district gained momentum after Distrito T-Mobile opened in 2021 and began drawing an estimated 3.4 million visitors a year, the magazine reported.
Related coverage: Inside the Opus Miramar Controversy: Tax Incentives, Public Land and Allegations of Political Pressure
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Sources: Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority request for proposals CDBG-DR-IPG-PRCCDA-2025-04 (May 7, 2025) and request for quotations CDBG-DR-IPG-PRCCDA-2026-02 (Feb. 27, 2026); Puerto Rico Department of Housing IPG program page; El Nuevo Día and El Vocero (Oct. 22-23); News is my Business (Oct. 23); Caribbean Business (Oct. 23, 2026).
Image: AI-generated illustration.
