A couple more big-name restaurants plan to open in Waikiki at Outrigger Enterprises' Waikiki Beach Walk project, which celebrated a construction milestone yesterday.

Fine-dining establishment Ruth's Chris Steak House and Yard House, a California-based chain popular for its selection of 130 to 250 beers on tap, have joined the growing list of restaurant and retail tenants expected to open toward the end of the year at the project.

Previously announced tenants for the restaurant-anchored complex include Roy's Restaurant, Holokai Grill, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Crazy Shirts, Island Pearls by Maui Divers, Folli Follie and cream-puff purveyor Beard Papa's.

In all, six restaurants and bars, a pedestrian plaza and 40 retail stores are slated to fill out the project's 90,000 square feet of space. About 80 percent of the space is leased.

Outrigger began work on Waikiki Beach Walk last April with the demolition of three old hotels. Yesterday, the last piece of major structural construction — including steel framework, a five-level parking structure and a pool deck — was completed. To mark the occasion, several hundred construction workers signed their names on the last support beam before it was lifted and bolted in place at the retail and entertainment complex.

After a few more months of work, the first tenants are expected to begin interior improvements in time to open on Nov. 1.

"What's shaping up here is for the street to return to a popular entertainment district," said Barbara Campbell, vice president of retail leasing for Outrigger. "This street is going to be a great destination for dining in a much more contemporary setting with an entertainment theme."

Also helping transform Lewers will be the $84 million renovation of Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a part of which borders Lewers Street and will contribute restaurants such as Senor Frog's and possibly a P.F. Chang's to the renewal of what used to be a grungy streetscape defined by truck deliveries.

The Outrigger restaurant and retail complex is one part of the local hotel company's $460 million redevelopment of 8 acres along Lewers, Beach Walk and Kalia and Saratoga roads.

Two other components of the initial phase of work are the renovation of Outrigger's former Ohana Reef Towers into a Fairfield-branded time-share, and renovation of two other Outrigger hotels into towers operated under Hilton's Embassy Suites brand.

The two-tower Fairfield project is scheduled to be completed in the summer, followed by one Embassy Suites tower in November and the other in January.

The next phase of the Beach Walk project will be a more than $90 million renovation of the Outrigger Reef on the Beach hotel.

Outrigger also had planned to develop a 350-foot hotel tower to replace several smaller hotel properties at the end of the block bordered by Beach Walk, Saratoga and Kalia. But the company last year sold the site to a California developer planning its own tower.

The developer, an affiliate of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Irongate Capital Partners, could not be reached yesterday for an update on its plans, but the company is expected to build a residential condominium possibly with some hotel units branded by the Trump Tower name or something similar associated with famed New York developer Donald J. Trump.

David Carey, Outrigger president and chief executive officer, said Outrigger sold the property because the risk outweighed the potential reward for developing an 800-room hotel compared with building a luxury residential condo.

"It would almost be imprudent to proceed with a hotel," he said. "We're not high-rise condo developers."

Demolition of empty Outrigger hotels and a few other low-rise structures on the site are expected to begin in the next couple of months and take two to three years to complete the new tower.

Project information is available online at www.waikikibeachwalk.com

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.