Waikoloa Resort land for sale
The last remaining beachfront property at the Waikoloa Beach Resort is on the market.
The Big Island site is zoned for 300 hotel rooms, 500 luxury condominiums and 800 timeshare units -- part of a proposed development estimated to cost $1 billion.
A partnership led by California developer James Ratkovich & Associates has retained New York brokerage firm Eastdil Secured LLC, which began marketing the property last month.
The partnership -- known as Lonomakua Partners LLC -- includes Lehman Brothers Holdings and Michael Dell's MSD Capital LP, which bought three parcels totaling 29 acres adjacent to the 545-room Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa for $47 million in November 2005.
The property is being marketed for re-capitalization, meaning the partners are looking to change the capital structure of the venture. That could include bring in a hotel operating partner or selling the property altogether, said Steven Clark, executive vice president at Ratkovich & Associates.
The owners are not in exclusive negotiations with a prospective buyer, though there has been significant interest from well-known resort operators -- the names of which he declined to disclose.
"It's the last significantly sized entitled (hotel) property so there's a lot of interest from various groups," Clark said. "We're excited about the prospects. We love Hawaii and this really completes the Waikoloa Beach Resort in many ways."
The proposed development needs several hundreds of millions of dollars of equity to be completed, he said, adding that completing a project of this cost, size and complexity will take about five to seven years.
"Our hopes are that we can kind of get something going within this first quarter and move forward on a business plan," Clark said.
The 1,350-acre Waikoloa Beach Resort on the Kohala Coast includes the 1,240-room Hilton Waikoloa Village, two championship golf courses, luxury residences and the Kings' Shops and new Queens' Marketplace center.
"The Waikoloa site is obviously attractive because of the success of the Waikoloa resort as a destination that's really developed and evolved over the years," said tourism consultant Joseph Toy of Hospitality Advisors LLC. "There aren't very many hotel sites in general throughout the state."