Keauhou resort is ready for business
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Staff Writer
After four years and tens of millions of dollars in renovations, the former Kona Surf Resort & Country Club will open tomorrow as the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort & Spa.
The 22-acre resort on the Big Island, which is still undergoing a $70 million renovation, will have a "soft opening" tomorrow, with more than half of its 521 rooms ready for visitors. The grand opening for the resort, managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, is scheduled for the first quarter next year.
Three of the four wings of the resort will be open this weekend and bookings are stronger than expected, with about 200 people staying at the hotel tomorrow and a wedding scheduled for Saturday, said Revell Newton, director of sales and marketing. He said the resort is still working on a bar and putting final touches on its spa.
"Many, many people know and love the old hotel and they're so excited about it reopening," he said.
Also helping bookings is the Ironman Triathlon World Championships on Oct. 16 in Kona, Newton said. All of the 288 available rooms were sold for that weekend, he said.
About 150 people were initially hired to work at the resort. By the grand opening there will be about 475 employees, said general manager Charldon Thomas.
"This $70 million renovation has made (the resort's) focus on higher-level markets as opposed to the previous resort," Thomas said. He estimated the resort will bring up to an additional 250,000 guests next year, adding about $40 million to the local economy.
Businesses in the area are hoping the new resort will mean more customers and higher sales.
Business at Alapaki's Hawaiian Gifts, in the nearby Keauhou Shopping Center, has been slow, partly because of the closure of the Kona Surf and the Kona Lagoon Hotel, said Josie Tampos, who owns the store with her husband, Alapaki Tampos.
Since they opened their store in 1988 they've seen dozens of retailers leave the shopping center, Josie Tampos said. But Tampos said the new resort probably will help bring in more customers.
The Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort will be the second hotel in the 2,400-acre Keauhou Resort area, which includes the Ohana Keauhou Beach Resort, the Keauhou Shopping Center, two golf courses, timeshare, residential and resort condominiums and single-family residences.
The Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort and the Ohana Keauhou Beach Resort are different enough that they will complement each other rather than be direct competitors, said Jim Austin, director of public relations for Outrigger and Ohana hotels. He said the 309-room Ohana Keauhou Beach Resort is "a little more intimate and a little more of an old Hawai'i experience."
"We welcome the opening of the Sheraton because it will bring investment dollars to marketing the destination," Austin said. "It will reach more travel agents and tour operators and industry people in touch with that area of the Big Island, which benefits everyone in the community. We believe that sometimes supply can help create demand by the marketing dollars that are invested."
The property has had a somewhat unsteady history.
The Kona Surf opened in 1971 as a four-star property but had deteriorated significantly by the time its owners, Tokyo-based Otaka Inc., shut it down in June 2000, laying off more than 200.
Otaka, which bought the hotel in 1986 for $24 million, had said the hotel had sustained more than $3 million in annual operating losses since 1991.
Koa Hotel LLC, a joint-venture by California investment firm Arlen Capital LLC and New York real estate investment and development company Brickman Associates, bought the hotel at a foreclosure sale. Kamehameha Schools is the landowner.
Features at the resort include a spa and fitness center, a 10,000-square-foot ballroom, a wedding chapel, a children's play center and a pool with a 200-foot-long waterslide.
Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 535-2470.
