Ko Olina Resort is a master-planned vacation and residential community on the leeward coast of
Oahu
Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...
, west of
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
. Ko Olina has of coastal frontage and includes three natural and four man-made lagoons with white-sand beaches. The master-planned resort community, owned by Honolulu-based The Resort Group, is home to four hotel and vacation-club resorts:
Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa,
Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club, the Beach Villas at Ko Olina and The Four Seasons Resort O'ahu at Ko Olina, and villa homes at
Ko Olina Kai
A KO is a knockout in various sports, such as boxing and martial arts.
K.O., Ko or Kō may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* KO (musician), Canadian musician who plays a fusion of hip hop and folk music
* ''K.O.'' (album), a 2021 ...
, Kai Lani, Coconut Plantation, and Hillside. Previously, the
JW Marriott at Ko Olina occupied
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is an international luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide.D ...
property. An
Atlantis Resort, similar to
Atlantis Dubai, is currently being designed as an international destination for millennial travelers. The property is planned to be adjacent to the condominiums located on the Honu lagoon.
Major events hosted at Ko Olina Resort include the
LPGA Lotte Championship
The Lotte Championship is a women's professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour. It debuted in April 2012 LPGA Tour, 2012 at the Ko Olina Golf Club in Kapolei, Hawaii.
The title sponsor of the tournament is Lotte (conglomerate), Lotte, an indu ...
, the Ko Olina Children's Film & Music Festival and the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival. Ko Olina is a spot frequented by celebrities.
Under The Resort Group's ownership, Ko Olina has created a $10B master-planned waterfront community, created over 5,000 jobs and generates approximately $2.5B in economic impacts for the State of Hawaii annually.
Demographics
History
Ko Olina is part of an original royal land division that extended from the waters off
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
to the summit of the
Waianae Mountains. The area was a sacred place used for rest and relaxation by Hawaiian chiefs, like Kakuhihewa, and Hawaiian royalty.
Kamehameha the Great
Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. T ...
and his wife
Ka’ahumanu were frequent visitors, bathing in the protected water of its reef-sheltered coves, fishing, and participating in religious ceremonies. Hawaii's last monarch,
Lili’uokalani, also came to Ko Olina for time away.
The industrialist
James Campbell James Campbell may refer to:
Academics
* James Archibald Campbell (1862–1934), founder of Campbell University in North Carolina
* James Marshall Campbell (1895–1977), dean of the college of arts and sciences at the Catholic University of Americ ...
helped develop much of the Ewa Plain, where Ko Olina is situated. In the late 1800s, after purchasing 41,000 acres (166 km
2) of arid, barren land, he had water wells drilled for irrigation and built a plantation for sugar-cane production. In the 1930s, his daughter
Alice Kamokilaikawai Campbell
Alice Kamokilaikawai Campbell, also known as Kamokila Campbell or simply Kamokila, (March 17, 1884October 23, 1971) was a territorial Senator of Hawaiʻi from 1942 to 1946. She was a leading opponent of Hawaiian statehood, arguing that Hawaiians ...
moved to what was then a secluded shore in the area. During World War II, Ms. Campbell allowed her property at Ko Olina, which she called Lanikuhonua (“where heaven meets earth” in Hawaiian), to serve as a recreational retreat for army and navy servicemen.
In the mid 1980s, Hawaii developer Herbert Horita and his Japanese investment partner,
Takeshi Sekiguchi, purchased the Ko Olina Resort property and entitled, designed and built the four man-made lagoons, marina basin, golf course and all infrastructure. After the Japanese real-estate bubble burst in the early 1990s, development at the resort stopped after the completion of the golf course and just one hotel, which was the Ihilani Resort & Spa, which opened in December of 1993 and is now the Four Seasons Resort Oahu at Ko Olina.
In 1998 developer Jeffrey Stone, President of The Resort Group, and partners bought the property from Herbert Horita's lender, The Industrial Bank of Japan, and began its revival. To date they have added two vacation resorts,
Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club and
Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa; villa homes, and the oceanfront Beach Villas at Ko Olina, a luxury condominium.
Resort Management Company Fact Sheet
/ref> Approximately 150 additional long- and short-term rentals are managed by owners directly or through authorized agents. Stone and partners also have added a full-service marina; two commercial centers with retail and dining; four wedding chapels; an activity center, and a beach and sports club for residents. Currently, approximately 50 percent of the 642-acre resort is developed.
Ko Olina Station and Center was developed by Honu Group, with its first phase, Ko Olina Station, opening in 2009. Ko Olina Center opened in 2010, and unlike Station, featured a second floor for office space. Located directly across from Aulani, the center's purpose is to "offer office space, speciality stores, restaurants, amenities and other services" to Ko Olina. Together, they consist of of retail and office space, with Station consisting of sixteen tenants and Center consisting of fourteen. In 2014, Ko Olina Station and Center added several new retailers to their lineup, including Wyland Galleries, Island Sole, and Honolua Surf Co. After this announcement followed the expansion of Pineapple Boutique, a luxury apparel retailer, that stated the opening of a second location within the mall. However, when the JW Marriott Ihilani, a former resort in Ko Olina, announced its closure, the center's tenants became worried about their businesses; Frank Mento, the owner of Pizza Corner, a local pizzeria, joked that his pizza parlor would "lose a slice of its sales". The mall is located next to the old Oahu Railway and Land Company
The Oahu Railway and Land Company, or OR&L, was a narrow gauge common carrier railway that served much of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and was the largest narrow gauge class one common carrier in the U.S, until its dissolution in 1947.
Origin
T ...
tracks, which originally hauled freight and passengers to the North Shore of Oahu; this location influenced the overall design of the center, incorporating the "historic" feel of the railroads.
References
{{Honolulu County, Hawaii
Census-designated places in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Golf clubs and courses in Hawaii
Buildings and structures in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Resorts in Hawaii
Tourist attractions in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Marinas in the United States
Populated coastal places in Hawaii