Outrigger to buy
Royal Waikoloan

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Outrigger Enterprises Inc. will buy the 545-room Royal Waikoloan Hotel on the Big Island for an undisclosed price. The company, parent of Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, has been a minority owner since investing in the hotel in 1991 and has managed it since it made that investment.

David Carey, president and chief executive officer of Outrigger Enterprises, said the company will conduct a multimillion-dollar renovation and give the property a new name, the Outrigger Waikoloa Resort.

The seller is TAAS Associates, a partnership of Transcontinental Corp. of Santa Barbara, Calif., a real estate company in Fort Worth, Texas, called AtPac, and Outrigger. Transcontinental owns 31,000 acres along the Big Island coast, including the 500-acre Waikoloa Beach Resort where the hotel is located.

Outrigger said it will spend money to upgrade the hotel, which is at the start of a string of luxury properties located along the Kohala Coast, where visitors pay some of Hawaii's highest room rates. Carey said the transition should be seamless with little disruption to employees or guests.