Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Friday, May 9, 1997
Square USA Inc. will formally open its 20,000-square-foot Honolulu headquarters on the 31st floor of Harbor Court Monday. Square USA to open
local office MondayThe producer of software for interactive entertainment said the Honolulu facility will be the key development and production center for its new video game products to sell in the United States and Japan. It is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Square Co. Ltd.
The office has a staff of nearly 100, including 50 computer graphics technicians. Square USA plans to double its office space and expand to as many as 200 employees by early next year, said its president, Hironobu Sakaguchi.
Square USA said it is working on some major projects, including a full-length computer-generated movie.
Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said it has sold a warehouse building in Fremont, Calif., for $8.4 million. The building, with 98,500 square feet of leasable space, was sold to Lafayette, Calif.-based Bedford Property Investors Inc. A&B bought the building in 1990. A&B gets $8.4 mil
for California buildingJohn C. Couch, A&B chairman, president and chief executive officer, said the company will reinvest the proceeds and will consider Hawaii properties as well as those on the mainland. Couch said the timing of the sale took advantage of a recent improvement in the real estate market in Silicon Valley and surrounding areas.
CHICAGO -- Instead of sizzling sales for a 55-cent promotion on Big Mac sandwiches, McDonald's Corp. franchisees so far have only seen a gentle warming. McDonald's promotion
fizzles, report saysMcDonald's hoped its yearlong promotion to sell large sandwiches for 55 cents with the purchase of any size fries or drink would trounce competitors, such as Burger King.
But the Oak Brook, Ill.-based chain's daily survey of 3,000 domestic restaurants -- about a quarter of the total -- found that since the Big Mac promotion began two weeks ago, sales are actually off as much as 6 percent on a given day compared with last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Franchisees also said the campaign has been slow catching on.
McDonald's spokesman Chuck Ebeling disputed the report of poor sales, noting U.S. comparable store sales in April were the "strongest we've seen in years."