Hilton’s 600-unit Hawaii timeshare conversion project moves ahead

Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. has completed the sale of 600 rooms at its 1,243-room Hilton Waikoloa Village, the largest resort on the Big Island, to Hilton Grand Vacations Inc. that will be turned into timeshare units, according to a public filing Thursday.

Park Hotels, a real estate investment trust recently spun off by Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., revealed details of this sale in a regulatory filing. The value of the assets was about $177 million. Under the terms of the deal, Park has the exclusive rights to occupy and operate the rooms beginning on the date of transfer and continuing until the end of the lease term, which expires beginning in May through December 2019. The lease, however, may be extended.

The 62-acre oceanfront resort includes 57,000-square-feet of meeting space and is valued at $1 billion, or $825,000 per room.

Park Hotels, which was spun off by Hilton Worldwide (NYSE: HLT), along with Hilton Grand Vacations Inc. (NYSE: HGV), into two independent publicly traded companies, includes 67 hotels with more than 35,000 rooms around the world. It is now the second largest publicly traded lodging REIT in the world, behind Host Hotels. In Hawaii, the 2,860-room Hilton Hawaiian Village and the 1,243-room Hilton Waikoloa Village are part of Park Hotels.

Park Hotels, whose total portfolio is worth about $18.5 billion, considers the Hilton Hawaiian Village its top asset and the Hilton Waikoloa Village its fourth-best asset.

Park Hotels, in a recent presentation to investors, revealed that a future project at the Hilton Hawaiian Village could involve developing a luxury hotel, timeshare or residential project that would include retail at its “Ala Moana Land Parcel,” located between the Grand Waikikian Tower and the Kalia Tower along Ala Moana Boulevard in Waikiki, as first reported by Pacific Business News.

Duane Shimogawa covers energy, commercial real estate and development for Pacific Business News.