Dateline

Entertainment center
planned for Waikiki

              WAIKIKI , December 9 --  An operator of entertainment megaplexes in Japan has purchased a retail site in Waikiki and plans to open its first bowling, video games, karaoke, billiards and food complex in the United States .

              Round One Corp., a publicly traded company that operates primarily in the Osaka area, bought a 30,000-square-foot Beachwalk property for $6.9 million from Hilo Hattie founder James Romig 's RPC Beachwalk LLC, property records show. The site, located off Kalakaua, is at the entrance of Outrigger's Waikiki Beach Walk reconstruction project, which may break ground in late 2005.

              Round One plans to build an 80,000- to 90,000-square foot entertainment center and a six- to nine-floor parking garage, though it will need permitting approval first. 

              Romig's company bought the former New Tokyo restaurant site in 2000 for $7.45 million and Hilo Hattie announced, then shelved, plans for a Waikiki store amid declining Japanese visitor arrivals. http://starbulletin.com/2003/12/09/business/index3.html  

Loft-style condo units set for Waikiki

              WAIKIKI, December 3 -- With home builders rushing to cash in on Hawai'i's exceptionally strong residential real estate market, Don Huang, principal of local architectural firm Collaborative Seven LLC, plans a $15 million, six-story  Waikiki condominium with prices ranging from $580,000 to around $700,000 for loft-style units.

              Huang, who formed Urban Loft Development to build the 36-unit project at 427 Launiu St. , plans construction in March provided his purchase of the land, which is in escrow, is completed in February.  Named Loft @ Waikiki, the Huang project is not big compared with the nearby 100-unit Lanikea high-rise under construction or the recently completed conversion of the former Ohana Hobron Hotel into The Windsor, a 181-unit condo. But Huang hopes the Loft will stand out.

              With ceiling heights of 12 feet to 18 feet and the absence of some traditional interior walls, units were designed to resemble loft space, though the roughly 1,100-square-foot units with two bedrooms and two bathrooms do have partitions and interior finishes.

              Other condos on the market include two Kaka'ako high-rises under construction — Hokua, where unit sales average about $1 million, and Ko'olani, where units began selling last week starting at $585,000. The 700-unit twin-tower Moana Pacific and the 230-unit Emerald Tower are in the planning phase and are also in Kaka'ako.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Dec/03/bz/bz02a.html

Original Waikiki Theatre to come tumbling down

             November 18 -- Waikiki Theatre No. 3, the original Waikiki Theatre from 1936, will be demolished early next year to make way for a three-story retail-restaurant complex.  The theater was famed for its cinema organ, with the console that spun up from below to pipe live pre-show and intermission music to the audience, and projected clouds moving among the stars across the ceiling.

              Plans now being circulated to city and state authorities call for the building to be razed and replaced by a three-story commercial building, with retailers on the ground floor and restaurants on the others.

              The physical structures of the other Consolidated theaters in the area -- Waikiki No. 1 and No. 2, closed along with No. 3 a year ago, and the Imax theater, closed in July -- will remain.  Efforts are being made to find new retail tenants for those buildings.

              The original Waikiki Theatre was known for its white-palace appearance and wide staircases leading up the auditorium courtyard, flanked by carp ponds and imitation tropical foliage. Its marquee above the Kalakaua Avenue sidewalk bannered some of the most famous movies produced in Hollywood . http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/18/business/index3.html  

Dock rust displaces Ala Wai boaters

              Waikiki , Nov. 15 -- Thirty-four boats at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor have been moved from unsafe docks with rusting metal support cables. The docks could give way under their own weight at any time.

              The state does not have an estimate of the cost to replace the most recently condemned docks, which are on the state-run small boat harbor's 700 row. But it expects to spend $750,000 next year to replace other docks.  A now vacant F dock has 70 slips.

Any cost to replace the affected slips in the 700 row would have to be put into the division's capital spending request to the Legislature next year.

              Boaters using slips 756 to 787 were cautioned in mid-October to limit the number of people on their docks to five at a time. A Nov. 4 letter from the state was more blunt, requiring boaters to "immediately relocate your vessel."

              The decision to move boaters was made after state engineers reviewed a $25,000 study of the 100 and 700 row docks by structural engineers Nishimura, Katayama and Oki Inc. http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/15/news/index2.html

Waikiki Aquarium
exhibits earn awards

                   WAIKIKI , November 2, 2003 -- The Waikiki Aquarium's conservation exhibits and programs were recognized with two major awards at the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Annual Conference in Columbus , Ohio .

                   It was chosen over five other aquariums to receive the seventh annual Munson Aquatic Conservation Exhibit (MACE) Award for its "South Pacific Marine Communities" exhibit focusing on conservation of critical habitats. The exhibit features more than 140 species from the shorelines and coral reefs of the South and western Pacific.

                   The Waikiki Aquarium was one of three in the nation to receive the Edward H. Bean Award for its "Long Term Tropical Pacific Coral Propagation Program." Since 1991, the aquarium has distributed 2,600 species of propagated tropical Pacific corals to researchers and Zoo and Aquarium Association institutions.

The aquarium, celebrating its 100th anniversary next year, is the third oldest public aquarium in the United States . It has more than 2,500 organisms on exhibit representing more than 420 species of aquatic animals and plants. http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/02/news/index12.html

Cheesecake Factory to open in Waikiki

WAIKIKI, Oct. 29, 2003 -- The Cheesecake Factory, the California chain of casual-dining restaurants with industry-leading sales is about to enter the Hawai'i market with its biggest restaurant yet, expecting the operation to be among its top five doing more than $1 million in monthly sales.

With room to seat almost as many people as the old Cinerama Theater, the nearly 600-seat Cheesecake Factory scheduled to open in early December at Waikiki 's Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center also expects a lot of Hawai'i residents to visit a part of O'ahu that many kama'aina prefer to avoid.

But if there's any doubt that the 33-year-old debt-free company can succeed here, you don't hear it from analysts who study the business or from shopping center owners who compete fiercely for the restaurant as an anchor tenant.

"They have yet to open a bad restaurant," said Sharon Zackfia, a restaurant industry analyst for investment banking firm William Blair & Co. in Chicago .

According to analysts and consumers, there's a simple formula to what makes the Cheesecake Factory work: value and volume.

Customers find generous portions of quality food at good prices in a casual setting with decor that's more upscale than usual. Howard Gordon, company vice president for business development and marketing, said 70 percent of customers have leftovers wrapped up to take home.

The average restaurant serves 3,000 people a day, and brings in $1,000 per square foot in sales, or $11 million a year. The average Cheesecake Factory customer check is $16.

The busiest Cheesecake Factory, in Chicago , does $18 million a year in sales.

"They do enormous volume," said Malcolm M. Knapp, a restaurant industry consultant in New York who said the average Cheesecake Factory restaurant revenue is higher than any competitor's.

One of the keys to the restaurant's being able to draw so much business is a huge menu, which lists some 200 items, including 36 varieties of cheesecake.

Zackfia said such a wide selection would hurt cost efficiencies of most restaurants, but Cheesecake Factory uses it to draw a big enough mass of customers that makes the menu manageable.

In Hawai'i , the restaurant will be among the largest — bigger than the roughly 300-seat Palomino or Ryan's, the 420-seat Todai or 550-seat Sam Choy's Breakfast Lunch & Crab.  http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Oct/29/bz/bz03a.html

Waikiki hotel goes condo

The Waikiki Terrace joins the list 

of hotels being turned into residential properties

WAIKIKI , Oct. 29 -- Renovations are under way on an $11 million upgrade converting the Waikiki Terrace Hotel into an upscale condominium.

The Waikiki Terrace Hotel is just one of many hotels in Oahu ’s prime tourist district to be converted into condominiums recently. With the residential real estate market continuing to boom, the conversion of hotel properties into residential condominiums and rental units seems to be taking off in Waikiki . The properties, many with ocean views, are attracting investors, as well as owner occupants and those looking for long- and short-term rentals.

When the visitor market dropped and beachfront hotels cut rates, revenue pressure was put on off-beach hotels. More tourists began choosing to spend their dollars on luxury beachfront properties, and some older off-beach Waikiki properties found themselves at a disadvantage for capturing their share of the market. But many of these property owners have discovered low interest rates and a shortage of rental units have created the ideal conditions for conversions.

Ownership of the property, which is adjacent to Fort DeRussy Park at 2045 Kalakaua Ave. , is slated to change in December from Max Holdings Inc. to Waikiki Terrace LLC, a newly formed Honolulu-based limited liability company whose members include affiliates of the National Housing Corp., Brian Anderson and Max Holdings. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Owners of the Waikiki Terrace Hotel plan to convert the 242-room hotel into a 217-unit condominium comprised of 186 studio suites, 29 one-bedroom suites and a couple of two-bedroom suites. Renovations, which will include architectural conversions as well as new furnishings and fixtures, are expected to be completed by June 2004. Plans also call for exterior painting and renovations to the lobby, mezzanine level, fitness room and pool deck.

The hotel will be rebranded the Outrigger Luana Waikiki in April 2004. Plans are to market the property under Outrigger’s Condominium Collection, which consists of 10 condominium resorts on Oahu , Maui , Kauai and the Big Island .

While the property is undergoing renovations, it will remain open for hotel business and will continue to take reservations, likely at reduced rates, said Jim Austin, spokesman for Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, the company that will be managing the converted property. Rental and purchase prices for the converted condominium units have not yet been disclosed, Austin said.  http://starbulletin.com/breaking/breaking.php?id=2067

Hilton to sell timeshare units in Kalia Tower

WAIKIKI , Oct. 29 -- About one-third of the hotel rooms in the newly opened Hilton Kalia Tower, 138 out of the total of 453, will be rebuilt into 72 timeshare units, a mix of luxurious studio and condominium-style one-bedroom units.

The six-floor Hilton Grand Vacations Club will open in December, said Hilton Grand Vacations Co., the vacation-ownership arm of Hilton Hotels Corp.

The timeshare space occupies all of floors 12 through 18 (there is no 13th floor) and the rooms on those floors are closed for the conversion renovations.

Antoine Dagot, president of the Orlando, Fla.-headquartered timeshare business, said Hilton Grand Vacations had a "spectacular" response to its first timeshare on the Hilton Hawaiian Village property, the former Hilton Lagoon Tower , which opened in January 2001.

Preopening sales will begin in December. Prices were not available for the timeshare project. Such projects usually sell in one- or two-week increments and buyers are free to trade their time slots with other club members.

Hilton began talking about working some timeshare units into the Kalia Tower prior to its opening in May 2001. Mold problems forced the tower to close in July 2002, but it reopened nearly two months ago.

Hilton Grand Vacations Co. operates two timeshare clubs, the Hilton Club and Hilton Grand Vacations Club, with a total of 63,000 members.   The Kalia Tower operation will be the 25th operated by Hilton Grand Vacations in resorts in the United States , Mexico , the Caribbean and Britain .  http://starbulletin.com/2003/10/29/business/index2.html

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