Owner selling 84 units at Downtown Honolulu’s Executive Centre

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Clifford Laughton, chairman of a venture capital and private equity firm called Hawaii Holdings LLC, is selling 84 units at the Executive Centre mixed-use condominium in Downtown Honolulu for an undisclosed amount.

The sale followes the Executive Centre’s Association of Apartment Owners’ purchase of the fee interest in the 41-story leasehold building from Kamehameha Schools late last year, Frances Okazaki, an executive vice president for CBRE Inc. Hawaii, who is marketing the bulk sale, told PBN.

She said that the association is offering the fee-simple interest to the owners of the condo units, and thus all the buyers of hte 84 units have the option to purchase the fee-simple interest from the AOAO if they want to.

An unidentified owner is selling 84 units at the Executive Centre in Downtown Honolulu

An unidentified owner is selling 84 units at the Executive Centre in Downtown Honolulu

“Our owner would like to sell the units in bulk and in leasehold,” Okazaki said in an email to PBN. “It will be up to the buyer to purchase the fee from the AOAO.”

In 2013, the same owner put units on the market in a bulk sale, which was marketed by Colliers International Hawaii.

Okazaki said that this listing expired a while ago, and that this brand new listing with her firm is with the same owner.

“While these are most of the same units, they are not exactly the same individual units as some are being kept for his [the owner’s] personal use,” she said.

Kamehameha Schools sold its leased-fee interest in the building, which is located at 1088 Bishop St. and contains about 120 hotel units managed by Aston Hotels & Resorts, for about $75 million.

Michael Pang, president and principal broker of Honolulu-based Monarch Properties Inc., which represents the AOAO of Executive Centre, told PBN that the association bought the leased-fee interest because it had the opportunity to do so.

“The owners are in the process of putting in contracts to buy,” he said. “You’ll see more of that going on as the units have become more valuable.”

The buyers of the leased-fee interest also included Hawaii businessman Duane Kurisu, ResortQuest Hawaii, Calvert Chipchase III Trust, Best Buy Hawaii International, Longs Drugs and MB Technologies, according to public records.

The property also includes about 200 residential units, nearly 100 office units, about 10 retail units, including Hukilau Honolulu restaurant, Longs Drugs, a penthouse and a 12-story low-rise containing 33 town homes and a parking structure.

Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News

‘Area in transition’ will become bank’s campus

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pg03asb-new-headquarters230-n-beretania-st-600xx1488-992-6-0American Savings Bank’s plan to build a new corporate campus near Downtown Honolulu that will serve as its new Hawaii headquarters makes lots of sense, especially from an investment standpoint, a commercial real estate expert told PBN.

“That whole area is in transition,” said Scott Mitchell, executive vice president of Colliers International Hawaii. “Lots of money is being spent in that area. It’s a pretty astute buy.”

PBN broke the news this week that the Honolulu-based bank, a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. and sister company to Hawaiian Electric Co., is buying the 62,595-square-foot parcel at 230 N. Beretania St., just outside of Chinatown, for an undisclosed price.

The move will bring together 600 of its employees from around the island, including its top executives, in a 100,000-square-foot building.

Mike Hamasu, director of consulting and research for Colliers, said the purchase stabilizes the bank’s occupancy costs.

“They don’t have to continually rent,” he said. “Since it’s an owner-user [arrangement], it might be a good move.”

Hamasu also noted that it might help clean up the area.

“By building on a previously vacant site, it will likely relocate the people using the site right now,” he said.

Richard Wacker, president and CEO of American Savings Bank, told PBN that the new location gives it the culture to collaborate and move quickly.

“We spend a lot of time on company culture and we try to be the best place to work,” he said. “Bringing everybody together will be a big step.”

The new corporate campus — likely to be a single structure, with parking — may include a branch on the bottom floor, said Beth Whitehead, the bank’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer.

“It really has been a goal of ours to find a campus for several years,” she said. “We have teammates in six different locations. That’s difficult to huddle and work together. We have been looking for and debating on a location for years.”

Approximately 600 current employees will be moved to the new location from offices in Mililani, the 677 Ala Moana Building near Downtown Honolulu, the Financial Plaza of the Pacific in Downtown Honolulu, Kalihi, Chinatown and the American Savings Bank Tower at Bishop Square.

There are no plans to close any branches, including those in Chinatown and Bishop Square, near the future headquarters, Wacker said.

Plans for the building have not been finalized, although 100,000 square feet is a rough estimate of how much space it could encompass, Whitehead said, adding that construction and opening dates have not been confirmed.

“We have to finish the elements of design and budget for it,” she said.

The property, which is made up of two parcels, had an asking price of $14 million, according to JLL, formerly Jones Lang LaSalle, which marketed the property at the corner of North Beretania and Aala streets.

Seattle-based HighMark Investments, the owner of the property, whose owners used to own a construction company in Hawaii, had plans in 2006 to build a 15-story medical office building and outpatient surgery center there.

About two years later, another plan to build a medical office building by Montecito Medical Investment Co., in partnership with PM Realty Group, also fell through, mainly because of the economic downturn

Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News