Partner exits
Maui spa venture

Maui Land & Pineapple Co. is proceeding on its own to build a wellness community at Kapalua Resort after parting ways with its nationally acclaimed spa partner.

David Cole, chairman and chief executive of Maui Land & Pineapple, said MLP and Tucson, Ariz.-based Miraval Holding LLC agreed to allow their letter of intent to expire after the two sides disagreed over the location of spa facilities.

"It is our prerogative to select locations and Miraval's option to remain in or out of the project," Cole said. "Kapalua Resort is proceeding with all four planned wellness and spa components but at locations that did not exactly match Miraval's preferred spots."

Cole said Miraval wanted the spa to be closer to the ocean, while Maui Pine wanted other resort amenities to be nearer to the water.

Harley Mayersohn, vice president of branding and marketing for Miraval, said the company felt the joint venture fell short of its financial targets.

Cole said MLP is well-equipped to proceed without the owner and manager of the Arizona destination resort Miraval: Life in Balance. Maui Pine's ground-breaking is still planned for next year.

The wellness community would have been a marriage of sorts for Hawaii native Steve Case, who is the controlling investor of a trust that owns 42 percent of MLP's outstanding shares and the controlling investor in an entity that owns 70 percent of Miraval.

Thomas Juliano, named yesterday as president and CEO of MLP subsidiary Kapalua Land Co., is expected to play a key role in overseeing the wellness community. He will start July 1.

"We run a fairly complex, sizable resort with multiple hotels, villas, golf operations, food and beverage, retail, ocean services, mountain tours, adventure travel, and tennis as part of our program," Cole said. "It's not that we're new to resort management. We've also added a CEO (Juliano) who's got highly relevant experience managing high-end hospitality operations."

MLP, which initially planned to own 80 percent of the venture, announced the undertaking with Miraval in September. Now, MLP will own 100 percent of the project.

"Our perspective is that we're managing the overall resort design at all the different hotels, clubs, golf courses, tennis facilities, oceanside amenities and what not," Cole said. "(Miraval was) just focusing on optimizing the value of the real estate for the wellness and spa component and they felt it would be a more attractive financial option if we located portions of the program closer to the water. We felt it would be a better overall resort experience for other amenities to be closer to the water."

Mayersohn said Miraval is looking at other places for a spa than Hawaii.

"From our perspective, it ultimately proved to be financially not as viable as we had originally thought," he said of the Maui venture. "Secondarily, we have a stronger focus on the East Coast U.S. and are evaluating a site in Mexico as well. With these sites being closer to home, they likely will prove to be more appropriate for our guests' specific needs."

Cole said all the design work that has been done on the project will stay with MLP and that the company has had "a lot of great consultants" working on the program in the past year.

The major elements of the resort will include a wellness center, fitness facility and yoga/meditation parks, a mountain adventure center that will offer hiking, biking and equestrian activities, a full-service spa and fitness center, and a wellness and personal development center for employees.

Cole also said that the Kapalua Bay Hotel will be replaced by a 155-unit time-share and condominium complex that will break ground next year. It will include 90 condos and 65 time-shares. The $300 million redevelopment will include a beach club and oceanside spa.