Dateline

Outrigger to sell two hotels

add time-share units to Waikiki

              WAIKIKI , Jan. 9, 2004 -- Outrigger Hotels & Resorts will sell two of its Maui and Big Island resorts to raise capital and reconfigure its planned $350 million Waikiki redevelopment project to replace hotel units with resort condominiums and time-share units.   The properties going on the market are the Wailea Marriott on Maui and the Waikoloa Beach Marriott on the Big Island .

              Meanwhile, time-share company Fairfield Resorts Inc. has agreed to acquire the hotel portion of the Ohana Reef Towers Hotel, which is in the middle of the Waikiki project. Outrigger plans to start construction in 2005.

              Outrigger said configuring the Waikiki project away from hotel development will ease the financing process. http://starbulletin.com/2004/01/09/business/story2.html

 Mills buys out DFS building partners

              WAIKIKI , Jan. 6, 2004 -- Local developer Bill Mills has bought out his other investors in the Waikiki Galleria Tower , the mixed office-retail building that is home to the DFS Galleria, in a deal worth $125 million.

              Mills was part of a group, including San Diego real estate firm Shidler Group and New York-based investment management company Angelo Gordon & Co., that bought the Galleria Tower for $95 million in October 2001 from Japan-based credit card company Nippon Shinpan Co.

              Mills formed a new company Global Pacific Fund - Waikiki Galleria LLC that bought out Shidler and Angelo Gordon. A person familiar with the deal said it was worth about $125 million. 

              Last year, Shidler, Mills' Bill Mills Development Co. and Watumull Properties Corp. bought seven Waikiki parcels for $10.6 million. The Waikiki Galleria Tower has about 75,000 square feet of retail space on a long-term lease to DFS Group. http://starbulletin.com/2004/01/06/business/story1.html

Hawai‘i hotels packed for New Years

              In one of the best occupancy reports of the entire year, Hospitality Advisors LLC reported that Hawaii hotels were more than four-fifths full in the period from Dec. 28, 2003, to Jan. 3, 2004.

              At a time when U.S. hotel occupancy was only 47.8 percent, Los Angeles occupancy was 65.7 percent, and Orlando occupancy was 80.5 percent, Hawaii hotels were 87 percent full.

That was 6.5 percentage points better than the same period a year before, and room rates averaged 3.1 percent higher. 

·                                 O‘ahu’s occupancy was 89.6 percent. Waikiki , with half the hotel rooms in the state, tracked the statewide figures. Japanese visitor traffic soared for New Year's. http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2004/01/05/daily84.html

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