Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, February 5, 1998
Holiday Inn to reopen Kauai resort in March
The old Wailua Bay Resort on Kauai will reopen March 2 as the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort Kauai. The 216-room hotel, once known as the Kauai Resort, has been closed since July.New owners, a San Francisco investor group called Kauai Beachfront Hotel LLC, bought the property in August, for $3.6 million. They spent about $5 million on renovations.
Holiday Inn SunSpree, part of Atlanta-based Holiday Hospitality, is the resort arm of the Holiday Inn system. There are 25 hotels using the SunSpree brand in its Americas region, the company said.
The property is on the east coast of Kauai, a few minutes from the airport and seven miles from Lihue. The general manager is Michael Morton.
Built in 1968, it was sold for $27 million in 1989 to a Japan-owned firm, Maruko Hawaii Inc. That firm failed and the hotel ran into labor problems and low occupancies.
Amfac moving unit from Oahu to Maui
Amfac/JMB Hawaii Inc. will move its property development unit to Maui at the end of February and most of the staff -- including the division's president Chris Kanazawa and two other executives -- have decided to quit rather than move, the company said.Gary Grottke, company president, said Amfac/JMB's Oahu property developments, in Waikele and Waipahu, are nearly complete or on hold and Maui is where the activity is.
Teney Takahashi, who has been working on resort permits for the planned Kaanapali Ocean Resort, will remain as vice president and commute between Maui and Oahu. David Gleason, president of Amfac Golf Division and a Maui resident, will oversee all other Maui projects until a management team is hired there.
30-year mortgages fall to 7.03 percent
WASHINGTON -- The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate slid to 7.03 percent compared with last week's 7.12 percent, according to a weekly survey by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.The average rate on an adjustable mortgage fell to 5.57 percent from 5.59 percent last week. Fifteen-year mortgage rates edged down to 6.62 percent from 6.70.