Industrial lots draw
inquiries in Waipahu

Fee-simple industrial sites
are relatively rare in
the Oahu market

By Jerry Tune
Star-Bulletin

Brokers for Amfac/JMB Hawaii say they are finding plenty of businesses interested in the industrial lots in its Mill Town Center enterprise-zone project in Waipahu.

Monroe & Friedlander Inc., which started marketing the property around the former Oahu Sugar Mill site two weeks ago, has received "more than a dozen serious inquiries," said broker Mark Johnson.

These include small builders, food distributors and food manufacturers who would be relocating from industrial areas near the airport, Mapunapuna, Kalihi and Kakaako, Johnson said.

Fee-simple industrial lots, less than an acre, have been put on the market only rarely in the last 20 years, Johnson said.

Mill Town Center is offering fee-simple lots of 19,000 to more than 40,000 square feet at prices from $440,000 to $1.2 million. Because the property is in a state enterprise zone, qualified businesses that locate there get an exemption from general excise tax as well as other government incentives.

The light industrial portion has 23 lots are the first phase, 41 lots in the second phase, for a total of 37 acres, he said.

Amfac also is working on other parts of the Mill Town Center, including a proposed 13-acre commercial site, a three-acre expansion of Hans L'Orange Park, a YMCA, a Filipino community center, a church and a two-acre "heritage center" around the former sugar mill's smokestack.