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Maui resorts Two Kaanapali Beach hotels, both sold in 1998, are cleaning house this year for a total of $77 million.
spending $77 mil
on renovations
The Westin Maui and Maui
Marriott are both adding
amenities and renovating
all their roomsBy Tim Ruel
Star-BulletinThe Westin Maui is spending $14 million in a face lift that will include renovating all 758 rooms, floor-by-floor, in its 11-floor Ocean and Beach towers, The rooms will get new carpets, drapes and wallpaper, spokeswoman Lori Michimoto said today.
The 720-room Maui Marriott Resort & Ocean Club, meanwhile, is more than halfway through its $63 million complete remake. The project, which began in March and is scheduled to finish in December, includes converting one wing into time-share units.
The Westin Maui is building a $1.4 million beachfront restaurant, Tropica, featuring waterfalls, ponds and a wood-burning pizza oven. Tropica, a 200-seat restaurant, is scheduled to open in December. Last week, the Westin Maui finished razing its former Villa restaurant to make way for 14,000-square-feet of meeting space, Michimoto said. The Westin's renovations are scheduled to be finished next summer.
At the Maui Marriott Resort, plans include converting the 120-room Molokai Wing into time shares, and renovating all 600 guest rooms in the Lanai and Maui towers, spokesman David McNeil said. It is also rebuilding the lobbies, ballrooms, shop facades, and adding a $7 million pool.
"It's pretty much a top to bottom," McNeil said.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Inc. bought the Westin Maui for $132 million in July 1998 from a Japan-based company Kaukani (Maui) Corp., which had bought it for $290 million in 1990. Kaukani's Tokyo-based parent filed for liquidation bankruptcy earlier this year. Developer Chris Hemmeter opened the hotel in 1987 after spending $120 million to improve an old hotel on the site.
Host Marriott Corp. bought the Maui Marriott for $145 million from another Japanese group in a foreclosure sale just one month after the Westin Maui sale. Marriott had managed the hotel since the early 1980s.