General Hawaii News: April 2005 Archives

Kona Surf Now A Sheraton

The Kona Surf, well-known to Hawaii residents and visitors as the hotel with the manta rays, has reopened as the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort & Spa and is already running fairly full.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Hawaii, Senior Vice President, Keith Vieira, said the 521-room hotel had 25,000 room night bookings even before it reopened last weekend following a US$70-million renovation.

The hotel has a pool deck built over the ocean, where underwater lights attracted plankton, which in turn attract manta rays.

Several resorts on the Big Island's Kohala-Kona coast have undergone ownership changes and/or renovations in the past 2-years.

Big Island hotel occupancy, while lagging other islands, has rebounded to the 70% level for most weeks so far this year, and sometimes fuller, with room rates running consistently higher than last year's levels.

THE MAUI OCEAN CENTER will begin offering a day camp for children ages 8 to 12 from June 6 through Sept. 2. The sessions will take place Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will offer kids the chance to earn a Junior Naturalist certification. Sharks, stingrays, coral and other aquatic life are covered. The program is being touted as a great way for moms and dads to get in a round of golf while kids enjoy an educational experience. Cost is $55 per day. There's a 10% discount for Maui Ocean Center members. Call (808) 270-7075 or visit www.mauioceancenter.com.

Long-delayed construction is changing Maui's landscape
Nina Wu
Pacific Business News

Maui is home to hundreds of millions of dollars of residential and commercial construction projects, spurring additional business for real estate agents, contractors and designers.

"There is a lot of work in the works in Maui County," said Charlie Jencks, president of the Maui Contractors Association. "It's hard to get competitive prices, and right now it's either take it or leave it."

Though it may be a contractor's market, Jencks refrained from calling it a boom, saying only that many of the projects entitled for development 10 years ago are now going through the pipeline.

The activity is being driven, he said, by low interest rates, demand for housing and an upswing in an economy that discouraged projects few years ago.

Major projects include Stanford Carr's Kehalani master plan in Kahului, residential resort projects in Wailea, and Dowling Co.'s Kulamalu Town Center.

Jencks said an average of about 2,500 building permits are issued every year on Maui, but that not all construction begins right away. Getting the entitlement to develop lands on Maui is the No. 1 challenge, he said.
Residential wave

A residential construction wave has hit Maui -- both in high-end and lower-end single-family homes. In central Maui, three developers are building several thousand homes: Stanford Carr, Towne Development of Hawaii Inc. and The Mills Group.

Various other projects are planned from Kihei to Wailea.

VP and PK LLC, a partnership between Valentine Peroff and Paul Kyno of Sleeping Giant Realty in Kauai, is developing Fairways at Maui Lani on the Dunes Golf Course. The 50-lot subdivision is scheduled for completion at the end of the year.

Everett Dowling, president of Dowling Co. Inc., estimated he has about $250 million worth of projects in the construction or planning phases this year.

Kulamalu Town Center, a project in Upcountry Maui, will offer both single-family and multifamily housing, shopping, entertainment, a police service center and park.

In the affordable-housing category, Dowling Co. is building Waiehu Kou, a project for the state Department of Hawaiian Homelands.
Wailea's boom

Wailea is home to several projects, from Dowling's One Palauea Bay to Kai Malu at Wailea, A&B's joint development with Armstrong Builders.

More are planned, with WCPT Land Associates hoping to get approval for Honuaula, the recent genesis of a master-planned golf community on 670 acres -- formerly known as Wailea 670. If approved, it would allow for up to 1,400 units to be built over 20 years.

Alexander & Baldwin sold off various Wailea parcels for luxury development. Among them are Kai Malu, Kanani Wailea, Papali Wailea and Hoolei.

Kai Malu is A&B's joint venture with Armstrong Builders offering 150 units on a 25-acre parcel, expected to break ground next month. Pacific Land & Homes LLC is building Kanani Wailea, 38 homes on nine acres, with sales and construction expected soon. Because getting a good contractor is difficult, Landtec partnered with Coastal Construction Co. of Oahu for the project.

The CMI Group Inc. bought a 30-acre site from A&B in April and is planning Hoolei, offering 120 town-home condominiums. President Marty Quill said he hopes to start construction this summer, with delivery of units toward the end of 2006.

Reach Nina Wu at 955-8038 or nwu@bizjournals.com.

Record February for tourism
Howard Dicus

The state's wrap-up report on last month's visitor spending shows it was the best February for tourism that Hawaii has ever had.

"Visitor arrivals exceeded all expectations," said Tourism Liaison Marsha Wienert. "U.S. East arrivals increased 11.4 percent and U.S. West arrivals increased 6.5 percent compared to February 2004. When you combine that with an increase of 5.7 percent in Japanese arrivals, February was an outstanding month."

The good news at a glance:

* Visitor arrivals were up 6.8 percent.
* Domestic arrivals rose 8.7 percent to a record 403,552.
* International arrivals rose 2.7 percent to 169,660.
* Japanese arrivals rose 5.7 percent to 122,513.
* Visitor days rose 5.5 percent to 5.3 million.
* Visitor spending rose 4.1 percent to $864.2 million.
* Cruise traffic rose 19.6 percent to 20,079.

For January and February together, a record 788,659 visitors stayed for a total of 9.9 percent more days. International arrivals for the two months together were up 14.8 percent. Cruise passengers rose 32.5 percent. Visitor spending for the two months together rose 7.9 percent to $1.8 billion. The combined figures are useful because they remove any confusion caused by the NFL Pro Bowl, whose 25,400-visitor impact moved with the calendar.

The average daily census of visitors so far this year is roughly 194,000, compared to less than 174,000 last year at the same time.

One thing hasn't changed: two out of three visitors have been here before. The repeat volume was 64 percent last year at this time, and now it's 64.9 percent.

Around the islands:

* Kauai: The Garden Isle got 79,000 visitors in February, down 2.1 percent from last year, though year-to-date arrivals are running ahead 3 percent.
* Oahu: International arrivals to Honolulu were only slightly higher last month, but mainland arrivals were up 6 percent and average domestic length of stay also rose. Honolulu got 212,000 domestic and 151,000 foreign visitors. Oahu was the only island that got more U.S. East than U.S. West visitors.
* Maui: The Valley Isle got 154,000 domestic visitors in February, up almost 9 percent, more than making up for a roughly 4 percent decline in international arrivals to fewer than 25,000. Arrivals declined on both Lanai and Molokai, which together counted fewer than 12,000 visitors, some of whom are double-counted because they visited both islands.
* Big Island: Hawaii County saw domestic arrivals spike almost 26 percent last month to nearly 93,000, while international arrivals rose more than 4 percent to add another 27,000 visitors to the mix, putting total arrivals up 20 percent to nearly 120,000.

Regional breakdowns for visitor days in February:

* From U.S. West: 1.95 million visitor days (205,741 visitors staying an average 9.5 days). U.S. West visitors spent $280 million, up slightly from last year.
* From U.S. East: 1.81 million (170,903 visitors staying an average 10.6 days). U.S. East visitors spent $296.3 million, up 15.8 percent from last year and the most of any group.
* From Japan: 680,000 (122,513 visitors staying an average 5.5 days). Japanese visitors spent $169.9 million, down slightly from last year.
* From Canada: 467,000 (33,539 visitors staying an average 14 days). Canadian visitors spent $61.3 million, up 9.3 percent from last year.

Honeymoon traffic to Hawaii was up 16.7 percent from year-before levels in February, the state reported Monday, but business travel, visits to friends and families, and conventional vacation traffic all rose, too.

Reach Howard Dicus at hdicus@bizjournals.com

March arrivals by air have gone far past the levels of either January or February, airport counts show.

January arrivals came close to 647,000, up 7.7 percent from last year. February arrivals neared 616,000, up 4.2 percent. March, through Tuesday, has 684,130 arrivals, up 9 percent from the same month in 2004.

International arrivals, which have fallen below 4,000 only once this month while topping 6,000 on four other days, are above 162,000 so far, including Wednesday arrivals, so in this case just one more day, Thursday, remains to be counted.

Japanese arrivals are running 11 percent above year-ago levels so far this month and other foreign arrivals are up more than 61 percent, though non-Japanese arrivals amount to only about one-seventh of total non-Canadian international arrivals.

Domestic arrivals, with Wednesday and Thursday still to be added, are near 527,000, up 7.4 percent from last year. The 36,000 extra visitors this March have flown mostly to Honolulu -- over 341,000 arrivals, up 7.7 percent -- and Kahului -- nearly 130,000 arrivals, up 10 percent. Kauai arrivals are up slightly to 21,000 and Big Island arrivals are down slightly, below 35,000.

Less than a week after Jerry Glanville was present at spring practice, Hawaii has hired him as associate head coach and defensive coordinator.

Glanville's last college coaching job was at Georgia Tech from 1968-1973. He coached as an assistant and head coach in the NFL after that including stints with the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons. Hawaii head coach June Jones worked for Glanville in Houston and Atlanta and replaced Glanville as coach of the Falcons.

Posted by Jeff Quinton originally at http://www.fanblogs.com/hawaii/005059.php

Glanville at Hawaii spring practice

Jerry Glanville was at spring practice for Hawaii today but he has yet to be hired. Glanville said that he was there trying to "pass an interview." Head Coach June Jones, who succeeded Glanville in Atlanta as Falcons head coach, said Glanville was just observing.

Applications for the defensive coaching job closed Monday and the earliest the job could be filled would be the end of the week. The Warriors were 117 in total defense and 118 against the run in 2004.

Glanville was most recently mentioned as a candidate for a job at Ohio State (after withdrawing his name at Northern State.) He also expressed interest in the New Mexico State job that went to Hal Mumme.

Posted by Jeff Quinton
http://www.fanblogs.com/hawaii/005043.php