Pagliuso Wins Pact for French Polynesia

COSTA MESA —  Thomas Pagliuso Design Associates said Monday that it had won a contract worth more than $4 million to design the expansion and renovation of three Japanese-owned hotels in French Polynesia and the construction of a new resort.

Tokyo-based EIE International Corp. recently bought the three hotels and is spending more than $50 million to renovate them.

A large, privately held conglomerate, EIE is a big player in the international resort business. It is the first Japanese hotelier to penetrate the French Polynesia market in a big way. The company says it wants to turn two of the hotels into five-star resorts and attract an international clientele to all three.

The three hotels are the 202-room Tahiti Beachcomber Parkroyal, which was purchased by EIE for $35 million and will get a $25-million face lift; the Moorea Beachcomber Parkroyal, on the island of Moorea, which was acquired for $13.5 million and will undergo a $19-million renovation, and the Tahara’a Hyatt Regency, a 200-room Tahiti hotel purchased for $30 million and slated for an $8-million renovation.

Pagliuso Design also got a contract to design a 220-room hotel on Tahiti that will include a golf course and marina.

The design firm has done a lot of design work for Pacific Rim hotels. Among its clients are Regent International Hotels, Hong Kong; Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, Tokyo, and the Australian company South Pacific Hotel Corp.

Pagliuso Design also recently obtained a contract to design a $400-million hotel called Resort at Tiare Bay for EIE on the island of French New Caledonia. The owner plans a 300-unit hotel and a 300-unit Club Med, 200 condominiums and 100 houses.

EIE owns 25 resort hotels, including seven Regents and four Hyatts. The company has also been busy recently buying interests in a U.S. hotel franchise and management firm, Park Inns International Inc. of Dallas, and a hotel developer, Aspinone Ventures Ltd. of San Fransisco, which built hotels in partnership with Park Inns.