Smaller luxury hotel to replace Renaissance Wailea
THE OWNER of the Renaissance Wailea Beach Resort on Maui wants to raze the property, including its seven-story tower, and redevelop the 16-acre site into a sprawling $250 million luxury condominium hotel.
Wailea Hotel and Beach Resort LLC's beachfront project would replace the current property's 349 guest rooms with 193 condominiums; 100 with one bedroom, 29 with two bedrooms, 60 with three bedrooms and four four-bedroom units. Sizes would range from 1,000 to 3,150 square feet, with prices expected to start at $1.5 million.
The developer needs regulatory approval from the Maui Planning Commission before it can begin work. Plans outlining the project were filed as part of an environmental assessment required under state law for shoreline developments. The document was filed by Kobayashi Group LLC on behalf of the owner.
Wailea Hotel and Beach Resort already is the fee-simple owner of the land, so the anticipated $250 million price tag represents only the development costs, which include a complete rebuilding of the resort and additional infrastructure and sewerage and utility systems.
The proposal calls for paying for this massive rebuilding by selling condominiums to buyers who appear to have a never-ending appetite for prime Hawaii real estate. In the document filed with the Maui Planning Commission, Kobayashi and Wailea Hotel and Beach Resort LLC say they expect most of the buyers to use the condos as second homes. Many owners are expected to contract their units to the property's hotel operator, which will rent the condos to guests when the owners are not there and share the proceeds with the owners.
Real estate and tourism executives said the location is one of the most attractive in Hawaii.
"If you look at Hawaii's visitor market, Maui is the highest-performing market in the state and Wailea is the highest-performing part of Maui," said Joseph Toy, president of Hospitality Advisors LLC, a leisure and lodging industry consulting firm in Honolulu. "So it's an extremely valuable and highly desirable area."
During the 1990s, Wailea had a dearth of new high-end properties for sale to the well-heeled people who wanted them, said Carol Ball, principal broker of Carol Ball & Associates on Maui. Projects such as Wailea Hotel and Beach Resort's proposed development are now meeting that pent-up demand.
"Now developers are speaking to that need," she said. "And it seems whatever they can bring forth, people buy. ... They seem to have unlimited resources."
Marriott International Inc.'s contract to manage the property as a Renaissance resort expires in June; however, the document does not identify a proposed hotel operator. Marriott executives could not be reached for comment.
The document describes a posh resort, where ground-floor condos will have walled, semi-private tanning areas with "plunge pools" and gardens; a 10,000-square-foot spa designed to look like a traditional Hawaiian village; a gym, four swimming pools, an amphitheater and a yoga lawn. Condo owners and hotel guests will be shuttled around the property by "butlers" driving "environmentally friendly electric golf carts."
In contrast to the current seven-story, 67-foot height, the proposed buildings would be two stories, or 25 feet high along the shoreline, rising inland to a maximum of four stories or 45 feet.