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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Heaven on Earth owner Lora Nakai stands in one of the unfinished rooms of her expanding spa. The business has grown from two treatment rooms to what will be 15.
Downtown spa business
is no longer divided
by fine printHeaven on Earth is expanding, again. Owner and President Lora Nakai was shopping for a massage table the first time she walked into the small shop at 1050 Alakea Street.
She wound up buying the business from founders Elizabeth and Quentin Kawananakoa in February 1997.
She had a $25,000 business loan to repay, a vision that people should "incorporate small indulgences," and an equation to add her services to the downtown crowd.
It penciled out.
In November 2001, Heaven on Earth expanded into a separate but nearby 3,000 square foot space, adding treatment rooms, equipment and services like a hair salon.
Six months later, "we added on another 400 square feet for a juice bar and failed miserably," she laughed. "So we turned it into a hair salon," to handle overflow from the original.
The business was at capacity, but customers and employees had to shuttle back and forth, mauka and makai. She really wanted one cohesive chunk of square footage, but between the spaces there was a 1,000 square foot obstacle, er, neighbor, called Best Printing, a unit of HonBlue Inc.
"I just called them up and asked them really nice and (President Larry Heim) said 'yes,' " she said.
Heaven on Earth now occupies 5,000 square feet in Bishop Square.
Nakai had some fears of expanding too far, too fast, but said, "I think that when you take steps forward you have to have the right signals.
"Our business had been growing by leaps and bounds. The rooms were filled and we had to expand our hours. Once we added hours we were still having people be turned away." Employment applications kept coming in and the math added up to expansion. The original three-member staff has grown to 52.
Licensed in each of the company's services save hair, Nakai now focuses on being the visionary for the business.
Customers "deserve to come here. It's a necessity versus a luxury.
"People need personal attention, it doesn't matter whether times are good or bad. They have to reinvest in their bodies in order to keep going," she said.
A professional woman, wife and mother of three children -- ages 6, 4 and 3 -- "I am the market that I'm trying to appeal to," said Nakai.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
