California firm, Hawaii hotel exec buying boutique Waikiki hotel
A partnership involving a California real estate investment firm and a former Hawaii hotel executive is buying a boutique Waikiki hotel, Shimogawa Scoops has learned. Kennedy Wilson and Ben Rafter’s purchase of the 72-room Hotel Renew represents the partnership’s second purchase of Hawaii real estate in the past several months. In August, they purchased a Japanese college’s vacant high-rise tower along Kapiolani Boulevard in Honolulu for $35 million. Arizona-based investment firm Atrium Holdco LLC purchased the nine-story Hotel Renew for $23.5 million in 2013. Aston Hotels & Resorts LLC is the hotel’s management company. Located at 129 Paoakalani Ave., the hotel underwent a $7 million renovation in 2008, which turned the 50,000-square-foot property into Honolulu’s first designer boutique hotel. Rafter is the former chief of Aqua-Aston Hospitality, while Kennedy Wilson’s Hawaii properties include the exclusive residential Kohanaiki community on the Big Island. The firm