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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, August 14, 2009

Waikiki hotel being sold


By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Los Angeles-based hotel and golf course company has agreed to buy the Queen Kapi'olani Hotel in Waikiki and the Mililani Golf Club from local developer Bert A. Kobayashi.

Terms of the sales, which are expected to be completed Oct. 15, were not disclosed.

Kobayashi, principal owner of the real estate development and consulting firm Kobayashi Development Group LLC, had acquired the two properties as part of a bigger purchase from troubled Japanese company Sports Shinko seven years ago.

The buyer is LA Koreana Inc., a hotel and golf course owner and operator with properties in Korea, Japan and the Mainland. The company also owns the 'Ewa Beach Golf Club, according to Wayne Williams, a principal with Warnick and Co., a firm that manages assets for LA Koreana.

Williams said it was premature to say what, if any, repositioning plans LA Koreana has in mind for the two properties if the sales close as scheduled.

The buyer has an obligation to assume collective bargaining agreements at both the hotel and golf course, according to the seller.

In the case of the 314-room hotel, the buyer isn't obligated to retain employees, according to a notice the seller filed with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. But a spokesman for UNITE HERE Local 5, the union representing 56 workers at the hotel, said a buyer would have to retain unionized workers.

For the golf course, the seller said LA Koreana intends to keep all employees.