Press release photo
A scene from opening sequence of the the 1960s
television show Hawaii 5-0, which used the Ilikai,
middle right, for a zoom shot on star Jack Lord.

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Ilikai Hotel
up for sale

The Japanese owners
have had it since 1987

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

The Ilikai Nikko Hotel Waikiki is for sale.

Jowa Hawaii Co., which bought the 800-room hotel in 1987 for $69 million and later spent about $40 million on renovations, said today that the hotel is on the market but it hasn't set a price.

"The investors are going to have a wide open field," said Kenneth L. Spence, senior vice president of Jowa Hawaii, which is a subsidiary of the Industrial Bank of Japan. Jowa wants potential buyers to make offers, he said.

Spence said the owners and the hotel's managers, Nikko Hotels International, both believe employees will not be affected by a change of ownership. "The employees have seen this happen before and they always survive," Spence said.

Mark Wakuta, the hotel's general manager agreed. "We expect this to be a smooth process and we will do our best to ensure that this development does not impact our employees, guests, vendors and customers," he said.

Spence said many of the employees are long-time veterans at the hotel and have seen a number of ownership changes.

Developed as a condominium in the early 1960s, the Ilikai ended up as mostly a hotel after Honolulu financier Chinn Ho stepped in and took control. Ho finished the project and opened it as a hotel-condominium mix in 1964.

The hotel was owned and managed for a time by Westin Hotels International Inc. and in March 1987 it was sold to a Phoenix, Ariz., group called Heller-White Hotels Inc. Industrial Bank of Japan financed that $55 million deal and in September of that year bought the hotel itself.

The hotel still has a number of units that are configured in the old condominium style, with their own kitchenettes. In the renovations, many of the kitchenettes were removed to make the rooms larger.

Jowa's Spence said the rooms generally are larger than the average Hawaii hotel rooms.

The complex still has some 500 individually owned condominium units which coexist with the hotel operation.