Marriott in Las Vegas time-share sales pact

Friday, April 4, 2003 | 11:02 a.m.

The time-share sales unit of lodging giant Marriott International Inc. has developed a sales and marketing alliance with the owner of the Polo Towers time-share units on the Las Vegas Strip and also will jointly develop the previously announced 840-unit Chateau project.

Under the agreement announced on Thursday, Marriott Vacation Club International, Orlando, Fla., will sell the remaining inventory of the Polo Towers, which will remain under the ownership of Diamond Resorts International, Las Vegas. Marriott Vacation Club also will develop the Chateau, a $300 million, four-tower, 33-story complex that will become a Marriott-branded property.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

No gaming component is planned at the Chateau, which will be built on Harmon Avenue near Las Vegas Boulevard at the former location of the Shark Club.

A spokesman for Marriott said that while the 512-unit Polo Towers would not become a Marriott-branded property, the companies are negotiating Marriott taking over management of the development. A spokeswoman for Diamond Resorts International said today that there are 80 units remaining to be sold and that they are expected to be sold out by the end of the year.

Diamond Resorts International President Stephen Cloobeck said today he was happy with the culmination of the deal.

"It's like winning the Super Bowl," Cloobeck said of the deal with Marriott. "They (Marriott) have been trying to get into the Las Vegas (time-share) market and the fact that they chose us is something special."

Marriott's parent company, based in Bethesda, Md., has several lodging units and controls thousands of hotel rooms in Las Vegas under the Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Residence Inn, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn and Ramada International brand names.

Another division of the company operates the JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort in Summerlin. The company also was identified at one time as a partner for a "stalking horse" bid for the Aladdin hotel-casino, just across Harmon Avenue from the Chateau site.

Marriott Vacation Club International is the nation's market leader in time-share sales, with $1.1 billion in sales in 2002, a 26 percent increase over the previous year's sales.

Ed Kinney, senior director of brands and public relations for Marriott, said the company has had seven straight years of growth of more than 20 percent.

He said the company is counting on customer brand loyalty and brand name recognition to compete in the Las Vegas market, which is one of the biggest in the nation for timeshares.

The Chateau, a four-phase project that would be built in the shape of an X with each phase including a wing of the building, would be within blocks of the proposed Westgate Resorts timeshare resort attached to the Showcase Mall.

The project, a blend of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, will be built as demand occurs, Kinney said.

"We're coming into Las Vegas at a time when the city has a tremendous amount of momentum going," Kinney said. "Some of the major players are established here, but the alliance that Dimaond and us are creating gives us a tremendous advantage."

Several other companies have timeshare projects on and around the Strip.

Diamond Resorts International announced plans for the Chateau project last summer. An investor in the project, Lakes Entertainment Inc., Minnetonka, Minn., is being bought out by Marriott in the deal, but terms were not disclosed. Lakes Entertainment, headed by President Lyle Berman, invested $250,000 in the project. The company has development and management agreements with Indian tribes for casinos in Minnesota, Michigan and California.