Restaurant Row
gets new manager

No decision has been made
on the fate of 72 workers

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Colliers Monroe Friedlander Inc. will take over the management of the struggling Waterfront Plaza and Restaurant Row complex late next month, laying off 72 workers from the current manager.

No decision has been made on whether any of them will be offered jobs under the new management contract, said Andy Friedlander, chief executive of Colliers Monroe Friedlander. He said the challenge now is to change the tenant mix and "reposition the project," with a major target of making it more attractive to people who work in the near-by federal and Circuit Court buildings.

About 20 percent of the office space and 40 percent of the retail space is vacant at the complex at Ala Moana, Punchbowl and South streets.

Friedlander said his company started work on the property this week but the existing contractor, Waterfront Management Ltd., won't be gone for another month, to allow for the transition. Waterfront Management is an affiliate of One Waterfront Partners, headed by the center's developer Bruce Stark.

The center is owned by New York-based Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association, which lent $113.5 million to build the complex and bought it in September for $50 million in a foreclosure auction.

Completed in 1988, the complex has seven five-story buildings, 425,000 square feet of office space and 89,000 square feet of retail space.