The TimeShare Times: Deal closes for 700 Ilikai rooms and timeshare

The local company Anekona Properties completed its purchase of some 700 rooms at the landmark Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki hotel yesterday afternoon.

The deal was announced to the hotel management and employees at an internal meeting yesterday afternoon, though no sales price was disclosed.

The Y-shaped property, which opened in 1964, is expected to undergo significant renovations.

Brian Anderson, president of Anekona Properties, confirmed the deal yesterday, but declined to give further details.

Anderson in recent years has acquired numerous hotels in Hawaii, including the Kauai Beach Resort and Islander on the Beach on Kauai, which were converted to condominium hotels.

He also owns the Regency on Beachwalk and the 51-room W Honolulu Diamond Head boutique hotel in Waikiki.

Anekona was planning to sell the W Honolulu to an unsolicited buyer earlier this summer, but the deal fell out of escrow. It will still undergo a million-dollar renovation.

The Ilikai, at 1777 Ala Moana Blvd., was sold by Forward One LLC of California, which is connected to the Zen family of Taiwan.

Previously, the Ilikai was operated under Japan Airlines' Nikko Hotels.

Some 580 units at the Renaissance Ilikai are fee-simple condominiums owned by members of its Association of Apartment Owners. Shell Vacations, a timeshare operator, owns about 80 rooms.

Joseph Toy, president of Hospitality Advisors LLC, said new investors taking ownership of the Ilikai would help rejuvenate the Ala Moana corridor alongside the redevelopment taking place in central Waikiki.

...a renovation is just as a good as a holiday