STAR-BULLETIN / NOVEMBER 2001 The House of Music at Ala Moana Center, along with sister stores Wave Music and Tempo Music, closed up shop after their parent company, National Record Mart, went into bankruptcy late last year.

Little interest
in music
retailers’ locations

Parent company's troubles
silence local House of Music

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By Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.com

Venerable Hawaii music retailer House of Music is now closed, as are Waves Music at Pearlridge Center and Tempo Music stores at Maui's Queen Kaahumanu Center and Hilo's Prince Kuhio Plaza.

Once the powerhouses of Hawaii music stores, offering recorded music, sheet music, instruments and concert tickets, House of Music and its sisters are shuttered due to the bankruptcy of Carnegie, Pa.-based parent company National Record Mart.

The Hawaii locations were among NRM's 113 locations put up for sale around the country, including two on Guam. But no bids were submitted for the stores' leases at a December auction by Keen Realty LLC of Great Neck, N.Y.

That leaves "the landlords free to do whatever they want with all the locations," according to realty agent Michael Matlat.

When the stores' sales were first disclosed in November, Gary Ross, acting chief executive of NRM, said they would "have to close if nobody wants to buy the lease." Some 20 Hawaii employees of the company lost their jobs as a result. Ross did not return telephone calls.

The 4,440-square-foot House of Music space at Ala Moana Center could wind up as just about anything, according to center General Manager Dwight Yoshimura.

"I think we need a strong player" since it is a corner space, Yoshimura said, adding that officials are going through a process of looking at different uses, ranging from a restaurant to some other type of retail establishment.

Tempo's space in the Prince Kuhio Plaza measured 4,095 square feet; it is currently in negotiation, according to plaza marketing assistant Shelly Rebuldela.

On Maui, the Tempo Music store was the state's largest NRM location with 4,469 square feet. It closed with a lease expiration date of February 2010. Kaahumanu Center management was not available for comment, nor were officials at Pearlridge, where the 4,200-square-foot Waves lease was also to expire in 2010.

Local suppliers to the Hawaii retail stores who were owed money prior to the June bankruptcy filing will likely never be paid. There was to be no severance pay for employees, either. In November, Ross said those vendors serving the company from August forward, when the bankruptcy was reclassified, would receive regular payments.

The initial Chapter 7 bank-ruptcy was filed in June after five huge suppliers, including Vivendi Universal SA and Sony Corp., sought liquidation of the company to pay off debts of $18.7 million. In August, the bankruptcy was changed to a Chapter 11 reorganization.

House of Music is believed to have opened in Waikiki in 1949, according to former owner Bob Clarke. The store moved into Ala Moana Center in 1962. Clarke sold his interest in House of Music and its sister stores of the same name to J.R's Music Shops of Hawaii in 1990. That deal was followed by J.R's bankruptcy and subsequent ownership changes culminating with NRM's bankruptcy filing.