Kamehameha
Schools sells
last of Atlanta
land parcel

Genoa Realty Services of Atlanta
buys 608 acres of industrial land

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By Rick Daysog
rdaysog@starbulletin.com

The Kamehameha Schools has sold 608 acres of industrial land near Atlanta to a mainland investor.

Pauahi Management Co., the $6 billion charitable trust's for-profit arm, completed the sale of its remaining interest in the 1,200-acre Gwinnett Progress Center to Genoa Realty Services of Atlanta on Thursday.

The price was not disclosed.

"We are all pleased to have found a purchaser who can carry on and accelerate the pace of development, the tradition and the quality of this complex," said Michael Paris, vice president of asset manager for Julian LeCraw & Co., which brokered the deal.

The deal underscores the trust's strategy to shed risky mainland real estate holdings for more conservative investments.

The Gwinnett Progress Center -- the third-largest business park in the metro Atlanta area -- was developed in the late 1980s by the estate and its former partner Durham, N.C., investor Clay Hamner.

Hamner was part of a group of investors who co-invested with the Kamehameha Schools. The group included former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon.

Many of those deals ran into financial trouble during the 1990s recession.

The Gwinnett complex was one property hit hard by the downturn, prompting the estate to transfer it from its nonprofit parent to its for-profit subsidiary, Pauahi Management. Since then the trust has been selling off properties at the Atlanta business park in piecemeal fashion.

In 1990, Ricoh Electronics acquired a large portion of the business park and now operates a 67.5-acre campus.

Seven years ago, Publix, a large Florida-based grocery chain, purchased 259 acres to build a large food distribution center.

"We have been very pleased with our investment at Gwinnett Progress Center," said Dick Wong, Pauahi Management's president. "We feel Genoa's purchase represents a good opportunity for the disposition of this asset."

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