Waikiki hotel's fate uncertain

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

Tokyo-based Sports Shinko, which sold three Hawai'i golf courses last week, said yesterday that it will no longer own or manage the 450-room Ocean Resort Hotel Waikiki.

The company notified the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations that the jobs of its 94 employees at the hotel will be terminated no earlier than April 1.

Satoshi Kinoshita, Sports Shinko's executive vice president, said "operations will continue" but would not say who is acquiring the leasehold hotel.

A spokeswoman for local developer Bert A. Kobayashi said earlier this week that it was possible Kobayashi's KG Holdings LLC would buy the hotel, along with another one owned by Sports Shinko, the 314-room Queen Kapi'olani Hotel.

Kobayashi spokeswoman Ruth Ann Becker said yesterday she could not comment on the Ocean Resort Hotel.

Last Friday, KG Holdings paid $12.4 million for Sports Shinko's golf courses in Mililani; Pukalani, Maui; and Kiahuna, Kaua'i. It is continuing those operations.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.