KALAPAKI BEACH – Long before even one brick was placed during the current construction of Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club at Po’ipu Beach, the project was already selling like gangbusters. Because nearly 10 percent of the project’s first phase (74 villas)
KALAPAKI BEACH – Long before even one brick was placed during the current construction of Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club at Po’ipu Beach, the project was already selling like gangbusters.
Because nearly 10 percent of the project’s first phase (74 villas) was spoken for even before the groundbreaking occurred recently, there will be no phasing of construction as had been originally planned, explained Paul McDonald, project manager of Marriott Vacation Club International (MVCI) at both the Waiohai and Kaua’i Marriott Resort & Beach Club here.
“You won’t see phases,” he said of the original Waiohai plan to build a building, allow timeshare professionals to sell it, build another building, sell it, and so on until the project is entirely built out and sold out.
That’s good news for the new owners of some of the 231 Waiohai two-bedroom units, and for Kiahuna Plantation and other adjacent resort properties and other landowners.
The area, in short, will be a construction zone for around a year less than originally projected. All of the foundation work will be done at once, then the buildings will go up one at a time, with no breaks, until the project is completed, McDonald explained.
And, as predicted by Marriott officials during extended Kaua’i Planning Commission proceedings regarding the permits necessary to tear down and rebuild the Waiohai, Marriott’s loyal timeshare owners began gobbling up available Waiohai units as soon as sales began.
Sales officially began May 1 this year, and sales were made that day, something that surprised McDonald.
He wasn’t expecting to begin selling the Waiohai before this month. “I was in no hurry to sell something I didn’t know anything about. You can’t predict pent-up demand,” McDonald said from a 12th-floor timeshare sales gallery formerly known as Prince Bill’s restaurant overlooking Kalapaki Bay at the Kaua’i Marriott.
And while sales professionals here, on Maui and O’ahu and in Orlando, Fla. are already selling the Waiohai to many eager buyers, a quirky law has for the time being kept McDonald and crew from selling to what traditionally has been Marriott’s largest market – California.
Protectionist legislation prohibits McDonald or anyone else from making sales pitches – via the Internet, telephone, mail, or in person – to anyone within California’s boundaries, until that state’s government officially registers the project.
A Californian here on vacation can purchase as much of the new Waiohai as he or she wants, but until the project is registered with California regulators there shall be no sales forays in the Golden Gate State.
How long will that take? Consider that sales of Marriott’s Maui timeshare project have been going on for 21 months, and it is still not registered in California.
That makes things a bit difficult for McDonald, especially when he has to tell a willing, cash-in-hand buyer who calls from California that he can’t sell him this particular piece of paradise because of that California registration requirement.
The would-be buyer, who McDonald is sure will eventually become a Waiohai owner, is livid, knowing that the would-be buyer’s friend came to Kaua’i on vacation recently and purchased a piece of the Waiohai, and not really understanding why he can’t buy part of a unit via telephone in California armed with cash and the knowledge of what his golfing buddy paid for his timeshare investment.
McDonald guarantees the man the pre-construction price, saying that when he comes to Kaua’i in the next six months, the deal will be sealed.
So why would people be in such a rush to purchase what McDonald calls “a hole in the ground they can’t occupy until 2003?” Several reasons, including 200,000 Marriott Rewards points being offered along with pre-construction pricing of units. Those prices will go up next month.
The Marriott Rewards points are sufficient for travelers to take comfortable vacations next year, since they won’t be able to enjoy the Waiohai until the following year.
Partly due to the better-than-anticipated early sales demand, McDonald made the decision to half the size of the Waiohai sales office, a converted construction shed on the parking structure that is about the only thing remaining (other than a beachfront swimming pool) of the Waiohai you once knew.
Some buyers purchased five, seven or eight weeks worth of Po’ipu pleasure, which at current price levels run from $14,340 a week every other year for an island-view unit to $40,680 for an ocean-view unit every year during week 52 (the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day).
With timeshare ownership, buyers purchase fee-simple a small percentage of the unit (1/52nd is one week’s ownership), and pay that corresponding fraction of annual maintenance fees and other charges.
That guarantees them ownership and use of a particular Waiohai unit for one floating week a year, which through the Marriott network of vacation resorts, airline partners, cruise ship partners and other partners can be exchanged for points good for vacations just about anywhere in the world.
An owner’s share of a unit may also be rented out.
Especially where pre-construction prices are concerned, a Waiohai unit is virtually guaranteed to increase in value. Next month’s price increase notwithstanding, McDonald predicts the price of an island-view week’s worth of Waiohai (currently selling for $23,900) will go for over $30,000 when occupancy occurs.
Occupancy is tentatively scheduled to commence in January of 2003. From a historical perspective, the sold-out Kaua’i Beach Club at Kalapaki Beach has seen interval ownership prices double since its inception, McDonald said.
All but two model units of the 232-unit Kaua’i Beach Club are totally sold out, and as tribute to the hotel and timeshare staffs at this property, it enjoys the best guest satisfaction percentage (around 96 percent) of any Marriott Vacation Club International destination around the world, he continued.
The Kaua’i Marriott Resort & Beach Club also has over 300 hotel rooms.
While the elimination of the phasing schedule for the Waiohai construction has shaved many months off the original construction timetable, it still means 17 solid months of construction covering two end-of-year holiday and two summer peak seasons in the heart of the Po’ipu Beach resort area.
That will inevitably mean noise, dust, construction traffic and some other inconveniences for residents and vacationers in the vicinity.
McDonald has been working closely with neighboring Kiahuna, even booking some potential Waiohai buyers into that property and offering to rent some of the Kiahuna condominium units closest to the Waiohai construction zone.
Unlimited Construction is the general contractor for the construction of the new Waiohai, and was also the demolition general contractor responsible for removing the old Waiohai.
By recycling a lot of the old Waiohai and using it for fill and other purposes for the new resort, and by offering hotel furnishings and fixtures to nonprofit groups, the contractor was able to eliminate many truckloads of trash going to the Kekaha Sanitary Landfill, and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in dumping fees.
Most of the resort’s trees were removed and temporarily transplanted nearby, to be replanted around the new Waiohai.
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
