Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel Not Included in Aoki Sale

COSTA MESA —  When the Aoki Corp. of Japan announced the sale of its Westin Hotel Co. division last week, the 390-room Westin South Coast Plaza was included on the list of properties slated for an ownership change. But Westin officials said Tuesday that the Costa Mesa hotel is not among the properties to be sold.

On Friday, Westin issued a statement saying that the hotel was one of 13 properties being sold to an investor group. On Tuesday, the company corrected itself, saying that its parent company sold only its lease interest in the 17-story hotel.

Both the hotel and land on which it sits are owned by a partnership controlled by local developer C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, Westin said Tuesday, and will continue to be held by that joint venture.

In Friday’s press release and in statements made that day by Westin Hotel Co. officials in Seattle, the company said that the 17-story Westin South Coast Plaza would be part of a division to be sold by Japan’s Aoki Corp. for $561 million to an investor group formed by investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. of New York and Starwood Capital Group of Greenwich, Conn.

In its press release Tuesday, however, Westin said the investor group will “acquire the lease” on the Costa Mesa hotel but that the property will continue to be owned by Secon Properties, a partnership made up of Segerstrom family interests and Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. The lease on the property expires in 11 years, real estate sources said.

Officials from C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, the Costa Mesa development company, would not comment Tuesday.

Wayne Bodington, general manager of the Westin South Coast Plaza, said, “The investor group acquired the lease-hold interest when it bought the Westin division. But nothing will change here--we are still managed and operated by Westin.”

The Segerstroms, longtime Orange County developers, have over the years turned the family’s Costa Mesa lima-bean fields into successful retail and office developments, including such landmarks as the South Coast Plaza shopping center.