Bill Duncan, the global head of Hilton’s Embassy Suites brand, visited an unusual location on which to build a new hotel — a grassy plot on the expanding fringe of downtown Kapolei.

Duncan flew in from Boston on Thursday to attend a site blessing for the project, a seven-story Embassy Suites hotel with 180 rooms slated to break ground in January and open in mid-2017.

“This is really an exciting and momentous occasion for our brand,” he said.

A pair of Utah development firms, Western States Lodging &Management and Thackeray Garn Co. doing business as Kapolei Hotel Partners, is developing the roughly $60 million project.

The Kapolei Embassy Suites — 23 miles from Waikiki and 4 miles from Ko Olina Resort &Marina — will be the first hotel built in the core of Oahu’s “Second City.” It also is one of a small number of hotels planned or under construction outside of urban Honolulu and Oahu resort areas.

Other hotels under planning or development include a 175-room Hampton Inn &Suites at the Ka Makana Ali‘i regional shopping center in East Kapolei that broke ground earlier this year and a 150-room hotel envisioned to be part of the planned Live Work Play Aiea community of high-rise homes and retailers. Ka Makana also has plans to add a second hotel, while a previously announced 150-room Residence Inn by Marriott in downtown Kapolei was put on hold.

Duncan said the all-suite hotel product by Hilton has built a growing customer base over the last decade by appealing to a broader range of travelers — such as government meeting groups, business travelers and families on a budget — compared with traditional hotels.

Typically, Embassy Suites accommodations are about 500 square feet with a separate living area and bedroom; by comparison, traditional hotel rooms are studios closer to 300 square feet. The Kapolei hotel, which also is expected to attract neighbor island residents, also will have an atrium, restaurant and bar.

Room rates have not yet been set.

The Kapolei hotel will be built on 2.8 acres between a 499-unit luxury rental community called Kapolei Lofts that partially opened earlier this year, and an 84-unit senior rental apartment project called ‘Ilima at Leihano that is nearing completion. The hotel site also borders a lot where a C.S. Wo furniture store recently broke ground and a lot for a future facility to be built by the National Kidney Foundation.

David Webster Sr., a Western States partner who led the blessing ceremony, said the hotel project has been in the works for about two years.

“We’re very, very grateful that we were able to see it come to this point,” he said.