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New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Group is the new owner of the beachfront Courtyard King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel on Hawaii island, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
The sale was a leasehold transaction for an undisclosed price, the Hilo-based newspaper reported.
Blackstone’s acquisition continues a buying spree of Hawaii hotel properties in recent years. Last year the company purchased the Grand Wailea resort on Maui for $1.1 billion and the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua hotel, also on Maui, for $275 million after buying Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu for $330 million in 2017.
The 452-room Kona Beach hotel has traded hands twice in the prior two decades.
The company that sold the property to Blackstone, Invest West Financial Corp. — which is also known as Pacifica Hotels — bought the hotel on leasehold land in 2007 for $57 million, according to property records. That price was reported as the value of the lease, which included $25 million committed for renovations.
Pacifica ended up spending $35 million on renovations that were completed in 2010 and represented the first facelift for the hotel since it was built in the mid-1970s next to the Kailua Bay pier.
Pacifica bought the hotel in partnership with Hawaii investors from an affiliate of HTH Corp., which owns the Pacific Beach
Hotel in Waikiki.
HTH bought the Kona Beach hotel in 1991 for $61 million with the land, property records show. HTH still owns the land under the Kona Beach hotel.
