The Hilton in Port Moresby is owned by mining and petroleum landowners. Star Mountain Plaza Limited is a joint venture between three provincial landowner companies, Mineral Resources Star Mountain, Mineral Resources Ok Tedi and Petroleum Resources Kutubu, held under the trusteeship of Mineral Resources Development Company, according to reporting from the project’s 2015 launch.
Royalty money from Ok Tedi, the Star Mountains and the Kutubu oil fields built the tower. Petroleum Resources Kutubu took 45% of Star Mountain Plaza Limited, MRDC managing director Augustine Mano said at the completion of the hotel, and stages one and two of the development represent a total investment of around K1.35 billion.
Built against a deadline
The concept dates to 2012. MRDC signed a management agreement with Hilton Worldwide in 2015 covering a five-star, 212-room hotel and the convention centre alongside it, with construction expected to finish by late 2017 to host the APEC leaders’ summit in 2018. “If it weren’t for APEC, such world facilities would not have been possible,” Mano said.
The build ran through a downturn, and Mano described the economic conditions of the preceding three years as a challenge at the stage one completion event, attended by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Hilton’s Vice President Operations Australasia, Heidi Kunkel. Papua New Guinea became Hilton’s 107th operating country.
Cost reporting shifted as the project ran. A 2015 account put the total at K1.1 billion, funded through a partnership with ANZ and structured as a public-private partnership for APEC. By 2017 Mano was describing a two-phase project at K1.2 billion, according to Papua New Guinea Today, and MRDC’s own account of stages one and two settles at K1.35 billion.
Construction employed over 1,000 people, a majority of them Papua New Guineans, with skills transferred from the foreign contractors on site, per MRDC.
What K1.35 billion bought
Stage one delivered a 16-storey hotel with 212 rooms, 46 suites, two penthouses and an executive club floor, plus the 3,900 square metre Kutubu Convention Centre and a car park for 441 vehicles. Stage two added an 18-storey building of 160 apartments and five storeys of retail and commercial space.
The convention centre carries the commercial case for the rest of the complex. Its timber arches were designed to echo a traditional long haus, and beneath the hotel it holds a banquet hall and six separate conference facilities, according to reporting by PNGi Central.
The complex today lists 212 guest rooms and 180 residences, Hubworks co-working offices, retail space, two outdoor pools, two fitness centres, six meeting rooms, a boardroom, 24-hour monitoring and security patrols, and complimentary airport transfers.
Four food and beverage venues operate in the building. Mumu is built around a working mumu pit and an open kitchen, named for the earthen oven and the layered feast prepared in it for celebrations across the country, with seating indoors or in over-water bungalows. Feast handles all-day and buffet trade, Copper runs café dining and a bar through the day, and Summit Bar sits on the top level.
Who fills 212 rooms and 180 apartments
A hotel with 212 rooms and 180 serviced apartments in a city with almost no leisure tourism is selling something other than holidays.
Serviced apartments at that volume are built for resource-sector secondees, contractors, diplomatic staff and development agency personnel on postings too long for a hotel and too short for a lease. The co-working floor, the meeting rooms and the direct connection to the convention centre point the same way, and the security arrangement is what a corporate travel policy requires before it will approve a booking into Port Moresby.
Location reinforces it. The complex sits in the government district, roughly ten minutes from both downtown and Jacksons International Airport, with ministries and the agencies that bring delegations into the country as its neighbours.
