Kauai hotel
purchased;
time-share
planned

The sale of the Aston Kauai
Beachboy to an Illinois company
is set to close in June

By Rick Daysog
Star-Bulletin

An Illinois-based resort company will acquire the 243-unit Aston Kauai Beachboy Hotel and will convert the property into a time-share operation.

The Shell Group, with extensive time-share holdings throughout the neighbor islands, is acquiring the oceanfront Kapaa property from Garden Grove, Calif.-based Watumull Group Inc., according to Kelvin Bloom, Aston executive vice president.

Terms of the deal were not available but Bloom said the prospective buyer plans to convert the hotel into a time-share operation.

The pending sale, which is scheduled for completion on June 25, was disclosed in a May 6 plant-closing notice with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Bloom said Shell has indicated that it plans to retain the hotel's 67 employees once the deal is completed.

Jerald Greenback, Shell's regional vice president, could not be reached for comment.

The three-story hotel, makai of the Coconut Planation Marketplace, was built in 1969 by Blackfield Hawaii Inc. Locally based Watamull Brothers Ltd., an affiliate of the sellers, acquired the hotel in 1975 from Blackfield for $3.6 million. Room rates at the Aston property are in the $100-a-night range.

Shell Group operates the time-share sales and marketing activities for the Pono Kai Resort on Kauai and the Kona Coast Resort on the Big Island. It also operates the Hawaiian Sun Holidays resort in Waikiki.