Nansay to sell
By Russ Lynch
big Kona tract
Star-BulletinA 3,000-acre parcel of Big Island land, acquired in 1990 for $45 million and already approved for the development of golf courses and homes, was offered for sale today at an asking price of $10 million.
The property, inland of the Mauna Lani resort, is owned by Nansay Hawaii Inc., one of many Japanese-owned companies that spent big in Hawaii during the boom years of Japanese investment and ran into trouble when the Japanese bubble burst.
At a $10 million land cost, development would make sense in today's economic conditions, said Richard Mandel, New York-based president of the commercial group of Kennedy-Wilson Inc., the real estate firm handling the sale.
The property at Puako, on the mauka side of Queen Kahumanu Highway and uphill from some of Hawaii's most luxurious resort hotels, has been approved for the development of up to 2,650 homes and six 18-hole golf courses, according to a Kennedy-Wilson statement.
"There aren't a lot of sites like this anywhere," Mandel said. "There's really nothing of this magnitude on the West Coast -- with an ocean view, this size and (where) you can start building immediately."
The property, once held by a business called Signal Landmark, was then owned by Henley Properties Inc. which in turn sold it to Nansay.
Mandel said it is a typical leftover from the Japanese buying spree that never got back on the market because of various complications.
What makes a sale possible now, he said, is that a group he declined to name acquired the Japanese lender's interest in the property. Mandel said the sale is structured so that the buyer will get all of the interest in the land once the sale takes place.
Kennedy-Wilson said it is taking offers for the whole parcel or for parts of it.Kennedy-Wilson, which said it has sold $3 billion worth of properties for Asian sells in the last few years, has been a part of several major land deals in Hawaii.
