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Ko Olina developer
buying Makaha
hotel, golf course
The sale marks another step
By Russ Lynch
in the $1 billion development plan
of the West Oahu resort
Star-BulletinKo Olina Co., which is moving ahead on $1 billion worth of development plans at its West Oahu resort, is close to adding the Makaha Golf Club to its holdings and is bringing in subsidiaries of Marriott International Inc. to manage the golf course and possibly a hotel.
Sources said ANA Hotels Hawaii Inc., which has owned the former Sheraton Makaha Resort and Country Club for 20 years, has agreed to sell it to the partnership that owns the Ko Olina Resort & Marina.
ANA Hotels, a wholly-owned subsidiary of All Nippon Airways Co., closed the hotel, a consistent money loser, in 1995, 26 years after it opened. ANA bought the hotel and the 72-hole, 6,414-yard golf course in 1979 for $9.5 million. It brought Sheraton Hotels in to run the resort in 1982 but later dropped Sheraton and operated the property alone.
All Nippon has been looking for buyers for several of its hotels around the world. ANA officials could not be reached for comment on the pending sale of Makaha. Officials of Ko Olina Co., the partnership that owns the 700-acre-plus Ko Olina Resort & Marina, declined comment. However, a source close to the deal said the parties aren't commenting because they are in "due diligence," the final phase of a transaction in which both parties check each other out, examine the property and decide on a value. Usually, both sides refrain from public comment during that phase.
Ko Olina Co., the local-mainland partnership headed by isle developer Jeffrey R. Stone, apparently sees Makaha, a valley resort about 20 minutes from Ko Olina, as a useful adjunct to its hotel, golf course, marina and timeshare developments.
The Marriott connection is logical, sources say, because a Marriott unit, Marriott Golf, manages the Ko Olina Golf Club and a Marriott timeshare operation just bought 30 acres on the Ko Olina waterfront for $30 million to develop a 750-unit timeshare village. Also, Marriott's hotel unit manages the recently renamed JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa.
The Ko Olina golf course and the Ihilani were purchased in October by a unit of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. with Ko Olina Co. as a minority partner.
Marriott, which has neighbor island properties but is making its first steps into the Oahu resort business, has said it sees the West Oahu properties as ideal for its family-based approach to tourism. Makaha would add stables, hikes and other recreational activities, as well as the additional golf course, to the amenities it offers clients.
