For 33 years, Coco Palms has been one of Hawaii’s longest ever waits. The story keeps circling back now and again. A new owner, a new plan, a revised reopening date, a new round of headlines. None of it ever ended with either the eyesore it became disappearing or guests checking in. Anyone who has lived on or paid attention to Kauai through any of this has learned to expect nothing.
Then this week happened. Coco Palms just secured $431 million in fresh financing, the largest commitment ever attached to the property. Nearly half a billion dollars, on a site that has been in ruins since Hurricane Iniki tore through Wailua in September 1992.
What just happened.
The financing came from X-Caliber Capital Holdings, a New York lender, and includes $185.6 million in conventional senior-secured financing and $245.35 million in Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy financing through CastleGreen Finance. Together, it covers 80% of the proposed project cost. The new target is now a 2028 reopening, with 351 rooms branded as Coco Palms, A Kimpton Resort under IHG and managed by Highgate. That is the press release. What it actually means takes somewhat longer to explain.
Why this one feels different.
Coco Palms had been promised in 2017, 2020, 2022, and most recently in 2026. Each time the artistic renderings looked beautiful. Each time the press release sounded like it was really the final one. But each and every time, nothing follows. So when another date appears, the first instinct on this island, or among Kauai fans, is to wait it out and see if anything is actually different this time.
This one is different because half a billion dollars is real. The earlier dates leaned on confidence, partners, brand names, and hope. This one leans on closed capital. That alone does not guarantee that guests will be staying in rooms in 2028, but it changes what we see when we drive by. For the first time in 33 years, the gap between what has been promised and what has been funded just closed.
What the site still looks like.
Drive Kuhio Highway past Wailua Bay this week, and the view has not yet caught up to the news. The big concrete shells that defined the eyesore for decades are gone. Beyond that, there is still mostly cleared ground and some piles of dirt. No framing, no rising walls, no sign of a 351-room resort taking shape.
For longtime Kauai residents and visitors who have watched this property since before Iniki, that road view has been the one honest part of the Coco Palms story. The renderings always looked so different from the site that appeared. With such significant financing now in place, the next chapter is whether what we see from the road finally starts to change. We’re here, and we’re watching.
What this means for Kauai.
This was never going to be just another hotel story on Kauai. Coco Palms sits across from Wailua Bay on land tied to Hawaiian royalty, including Kauai’s last queen, Deborah Kapule, with a cultural significance no rendering can ever capture. The reasons people have fought over this property for decades go beyond rooms and revenue.
The financing announcement points to real change. The developer projects that more than 1,000 construction jobs and 350 full-time jobs will be created once open. For residents who have wanted Coco Palms restored after 33 years of decay, that, too, is meaningful. For those who have raised concerns about Kuhio Highway traffic, shoreline risk, flooding, and the cultural meaning of Wailua, none of that is in any way mitigated just because this huge financing package closed. Both reactions are part of Kauai’s reality. They always have been on this property.
Why skepticism is still earned.
For now, both the money and the doubt remain real and earned. Coco Palms has trained all of us to wait for proof. That is not cynicism; it is lived memory from here on the island. The property has simply burned through too many owners, too many lawsuits, too many missed deadlines, and too much trust for any single announcement to feel like the end of this story.
The county permit record is part of that caution. Beat of Hawaii has covered the long-running Coco Palms gap between what has been approved on paper and what people actually see from the road, including in our earlier report on the announced restart. The permit history is a mess of layered old applications under owners and entities that no longer exist, plan checks that never closed, and demolition activity that has happened in chunks over years. That is where new financing now starts.
What changes the story is not just credibility. It is whether the road view finally starts to match what’s announced. The next test for Coco Palms won’t be another press release. It is construction that we here on Kauai can see.
The honest read about 2028.
After almost 20 years of BOH covering this property, this is the strongest reopening signal we have seen on Coco Palms. Not another rendering, or a new brand reveal, and not just one more optimistic press conference. A closed financing package with named lenders, and named amounts in addition to a stated 2028 target. That is a different kind of announcement than the ones that have ever come before.
Today’s big news still does not guarantee anything. Construction on Kauai is hard and slow, this property is unusually complicated in a multitude of ways, and Coco Palms has earned every bit of the skepticism it now carries. But the old story was that Coco Palms kept promising a return without the visible proof or the money clearly needed to back it up. The money is no longer the huge missing piece.
The 2028 date isn’t yet certain. It is just finally a credible story. After 33 years of promises that never quite arrived, does a nearly half-billion dollar financing close finally make 2028 real for you, or will you believe it only when guests are actually checking in?
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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It’s been a wild ride for way too many years. If it were anywhere other than Hawaii I believe that by now, the another State would have exercised it’s right of Eminent Domain and made it a special spot for the public, the people of Kauai. But of course the County/State, for 34 years, has instead been lured by the prospect of the tax dollars that they’d see with the construction of a new resort. Again, money talks.
Does anyone have recent pictures? We’re odd year timeshare owners so we only see things at long intervals. All I’ve ever known for the area is the decaying old resort, and this will be a huge change if / when it happens.
Hi Matthew.
We’ll be driving back today and will take/add some. There’s nothing happening at the moment other than what we reported as that was as of Saturday.
BTW mahalo for 200 comments. We really appreciate it!
Aloha.
This is the first Coco Palms update in a long time that caught my attention enough that I actually forwarded it to somebody else.
The funny thing is that half the island still seems to want it rebuilt and the other half wants a park that never could come to fruition. That’s been true for years. And then there’s the Kapaa crawl traffic. How can that ever get dealt with?
That description fits for me too! I do know I want the eyesore gone, but I’m not sure I look forward to it being built.
The traffic will be affected locally, but further up the road is a problem either way, even without this resort. It’s a problem from before Lihue until after Kapa’a. The “solution” is easy, but locals just see it as a path to further development so it’s not going to happen.
My parents honeymooned there and my grandparents stayed there. At this point I’d settle for seeing anything actually happen after looking at this mess for most of my life.
If they actually pull this off, it may end up being one of the biggest transformations Kauai has seen in decades.
At this point I remember Larry Rivera more than I do the buildings. That’s what people miss when they talk about restoring Coco Palms. Not sure how this can ever be anything other than another new Kauai resort, which isn’t what’s needed. Can’t wait to learn more of what developer has in mind in that regard.
Weird how fast the story changed. A few weeks ago everyone was talking about delays. Now we’re talking about $431 million. What’s next? Please stay on this one.
Part of me wants the hotel back. Part of me thinks it should have become a cultural park years ago and that a new hotel there will just never work with what the island has become. I’ve never been able to decide and this is if nothing else going to be fascinating in that way.
I have gone from believer to skeptic to believer again on this project. Ask me again when you see walls going up and I’ll be all ears.
I did not see the name of the owner. Is this the group that built the new golf resort outside of Saint George , Utah? Could you post links to documents?
If you mean Black Desert Resort, that’s owned/developed by Reef Capital Partners out of Lehi UT. They are trying to convince the Shivwits band of Paiutes west of St. George to build on their rez land to build another huge resort, so I don’t know that they’re involved with Coco Palms. But I wouldn’t doubt it , either. Their website mentions Hawaii but not where in the state.
The financing is impressive. The traffic at that intersection is incredibly impressive too. Both things can be true and it isn’t clear to me at all how those are going to come together.
Half a billion dollars is real, that’s for sure. That’s the first thing I’ve seen in years that feels real at Coco Palms. Can’t wait to see some change you guys find on the ground. And since 2028 isn’t very far away, hopefully soon. Thanks for update.
My husband and I were married there in 1982. Every update makes me stop and read. I hope they keep at least some connection to what made the place special.
I drove by there last week. If you hadn’t told me about the financing, I would have guessed nothing at all had changed. Maybe that’s the next thing we need to see. Something. Anything
I’ve been reading Coco Palms stories for so many years that I almost skipped this one. The financing broke through and got my attention though. Money doesn’t guarantee success, but it beats another stupid rendering.
Nothing says corruption in Hawaii more than this project being allowed to continue.
Thank you BOH for this update! I won’t be holding my breath for a CoCo Palms 2028 opening but I do always enjoy reading any news about it!