LIHU’E — A Honolulu Realtor says he has a client who has offered to buy the Waiohai Hotel property in Po’ipu from Marriott Ownership Resorts, Inc. for several million dollars more than Marriott paid for it. Marriott responded in writing
LIHU’E — A Honolulu Realtor says he has a client who has offered to buy the
Waiohai Hotel property in Po’ipu from Marriott Ownership Resorts, Inc. for
several million dollars more than Marriott paid for it.
Marriott responded
in writing that it is not interested in selling the property, said Ron
Gilligan, principal broker of R.F. Gilligan Realty, a firm specializing in
hotel real estate.
Gilligan said his client remains interested in buying
the Waiohai, despite the fact that the Marriott apparently isn’t interested in
selling.
His client, who he identified only as a frequent visitor to Kaua’i
and Po’ipu, has also expressed an interest in exploring the merits of leasing
and rehabilitating the adjacent Po’ipu Beach Hotel.
Members of the Knudsen
family own the property where the former Po’ipu Beach Hotel still
sits.
Gilligan said his client’s plan would be to rehabilitate the existing
hotel buildings (with local construction crews), hire back all interested
former Waiohai employees, and re-open the beach-front hotel as a world-class
resort.
Gilligan has briefed an architect and a contractor on his client’s
plan to ascertain what it would take to re-open the Waiohai.
He said if his
client had purchased the property at the time the Marriott did, the hotel would
have re-opened for business by now.
Stan Brown, Marriott vice president of
Pacific Islands and Kaua’i Marriott Resort & Beach Club general manager,
said he has no knowledge of an offer to buy the former Waiohai property, but
that such an offer would probably be handled through the Orlando, Fla. office
of Marriott Vacation Club International.
