Sometime in the next three years, 388 time-share units will rise up from spacious grounds at 575 S. Kihei Road under a proposal by the soon-to-be new owners, Marriot Ownership Resorts Inc., said Christopher Hart of Chris Hart & Partners Inc., the Wailuku planning firm. The developers needed a special management area permit to move forward and had met stiff opposition from neighbors who didn't like the size, aesthetics or extra traffic.
Plans for time-share project proceeding on Kihei resort
site
By CHRIS HAMILTON, Staff Writer
reprinted courtesy Maui News 10/10/08
KIHEI - Kihei's original resort, the Aston Maui Lu, is to close next month and lay off 41 employees in the process.
The sprawling complex of multilevel apartments and individual bungalows has become dilapidated as redevelopment plans stalled normal maintenance. It will all be flattened.
Sometime in the next three years, 388 time-share units will rise up from spacious grounds at 575 S. Kihei Road under a proposal by the soon-to-be new owners, Marriot Ownership Resorts Inc., said Christopher Hart of Chris Hart & Partners Inc., the Wailuku planning firm.
Reservation desk employees at the Aston Maui Lu on Thursday mustered aloha smiles as they told visitors to look for other accommodations if they wanted to book anything past Nov. 10. That's the day when the landmark hotel in operation since 1962 will shut its doors.
Its management company, ResortQuest Hawaii, told employees this week that the resort owner, 575 South Kihei Road LLC, was selling the coveted coastal property with its rolling lawn spread across 26 acres.
A telephone request for comment from ResortQuest was not returned Thursday.
Originally a winter retreat for a Canadian timberman, Gordon Gibson, the Maui Lu was developed as Maui's original bed-and-breakfast as Gibson added individual units for friends and family who were regular visitors to his estate. Subsequent owners added multiunit apartments and expanded the dining area into a showroom that was a center for entertainment in Kihei, until it was all upstaged by development of the Wailea Resort in 1976.
Maui Lu has looked dated in recent times. For nearly five years now, Maui Lu owners have sought approval to convert the aging and inefficient hotel into a condominum to provide 388 time-share units with "lock-out" doors, that split the two-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot residential units, Hart said.
The developers needed a special management area permit to move forward and had met stiff opposition from neighbors who didn't like the size, aesthetics or extra traffic.
But on March 17, the Maui Planning Commission voted 5-1 in support of the SMA permit for the project to proceed, with Commission Chairman Jon-athan Starr voting no.
"We've been working very hard for a long time to make this project fit into the neighborhood and give it that neighborhood feel," said Hart, who added that they did an environmental assessment as well.
Most of the units will be one or two stories. A single four-story building will be constructed in the center of the facility, Hart said. The project also will have a check-in area, pool, 600 parking spaces and a restaurant.
He did not have an estimate for cost of the units or how many people the time shares would employ.
William "Willie" Kennison, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Maui division director, said he is in negotiations with the new owners to try to retain as many employees as possible. Currently, 30 workers are represented by the union.
Maui Lu employees approached by The Maui News on Thursday declined comment, saying they didn't want to jeopardize their severance packages.
Kennison said some union members may be able to collect paychecks into December. These are tough times, he said, with hundreds of workers at restaurants and hotels already laid off or having their hours cut. Major layoffs resulted from cutbacks by Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and shutdowns of Aloha Airlines and Molokai Properties Ltd.
Kennison said that the Maui Lu's developers initially said they would end up employing more people than they do now. He hopes that will still be the case, he said.
"They haven't told us when they are going to start construction," Kennison said. "That's why the ILWU opposes the conversion of hotels to time shares, because of the concern of our workers. What's going to happen to them?"
The existing Maui Lu comprises a mix of old and newer buildings spread across 26 acres, including two beachside buildings along South Kihei Road.
Plans for redevelopment were challenged by Maui Beach Vacation Club, which filed an intervention in 2005. The issue went to mediation without a resolution, but in January the Maui Planning Commission took up the SMA application and eventually approved it.
There are conditions in which the developers agreed to demolish the buildings and seawalls on the makai side of South Kihei Road as well as move a memorial plaque to Capt. George Vancouver to somewhere on the mauka grounds, Hart said. Native vegetation will be planted along the shoreline south to the Kalepolepo Beach Park and dunes will be restored to the north, he said.
The new Marriot project will include a one-story beach club makai of South Kihei Road.
Planning Department Program Administrator Clayton Yoshida said that since the SMA was contested, the department will need to schedule a public hearing in the next month or so before the permit can be transferred from 575 South Kihei Road LLC to Marriot Ownership Resorts Inc.
* Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton @mauinews.com.
Subscribe to The Maui News | Mauinews.com
reprinted courtesy Maui News 10/10/08
brought to you by Wailea Makena Real Estate Inc.
www.Wailea-Makena-real-estate.com
Peter Gelsey R (PB)
Wailea Makena Real Estate, Inc.
direct (808) 357-4552
Toll free 800-482-5089
fax (808) 442-0946
email pgelsey@aol.com