Bacara Back on the Market?

Within six months of buying the Bacara, the new owner of Goleta’s beachfront hotel, Ohana Real Estate Investors, is now marketing one of the only four four-star resorts along the coast and one of six in the entire state. It says it is merely responding to inquiries as opposed to actively marketing the property. But Ohana has also hired an Atlanta-based company to list the property and prepare a 90-page prospectus boasting dazzling photographs and a blizzard of market information about the Bacara and its unmet potential. Bacara publicist Jennifer Guess said that the effort to foster community good will coupled with a change in top management has attracted outside interest in the property. Ohana bought the 354-room resort for $105 million, less than half the $220 million the hotel cost to build.