It's an odd experience seeing a former employer close up shop. I spent about three years working at the Ilikai Hotel back in the early 1990s, when it had approximately 780 hotel rooms and an equal number of condos and time-share units. Its then-owner, Nikko Hotels, was finishing up a $25M renovation when I started there; the hotel operations were in full swing, and it employed about 550 unionized housekeeping, F&B, maintenance and security personnel as well as roughly 75 non-union administrative and sales people. It's now down to 203 hotel rooms and about 65 union members; there can't be more than a token number of admin/salespeople.
The hotel was a symbol of Waikiki and Hawai'i; if you ever watched Hawaii Five-O you saw it in the opening credits (the show's star, Jack Lord, is standing on one of the hotel's lanais as seen in this YouTube clip).
The hotel ran afoul of an investor who had grandiose ideas about his own abilities compounded by the credit crunch of last year. I confess I can't figure out how it could have made a profit with only 203 hotel rooms available; the physical plant is huge.
It was built in 1964. It's disturbing to see it go.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 8, 2009 09:30 AM | TrackBackI hate to see the old businesses go under.
Posted by: cassie-b at July 8, 2009 03:42 PMYou know, this bothers me more than it probably should. I'm shocked. (Insert rant about the way financial speculation plays games with real people's lives.)
I'm going to forward this to my kumu. Her high school prom was at the Ilikai.
Then I'll watch some Hawaii Five-O and immerse myself in the past.
Posted by: Juli Thompson at July 9, 2009 06:18 AMNow you know how I felt, for about 6 months last year starting in September, as I watched the financial industry I'd worked in for 33 years crumble and vanish. I lived in that world before I retired; and now it's gone, and my former employer (Bank of America) is on gummint life support.
Posted by: hedera at July 9, 2009 02:22 PM