DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
As part of its deal to buy the Mililani Shopping Center, Alexander & Baldwin will also receive 12.8 acres of fee-simple land and a 15,000-home master development. The shopping center was the first built in Mililani, in 1969.
A&B buys Alexander & Baldwin Inc. is buying the 180,000-square-foot Mililani Shopping Center for about $30 million, $1 million less than the previous owner paid for it. The deal is expected to close next week, said A&B Properties Inc., the subsidiary making the purchase.
Mililani center
The company will pay $30 million
to Morita Co. for the 180,000-
square-foot shopping plazaBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com
The seller, Morita Co. Inc., bought the center in early 1999 for $31.2 million from the property partnership of Kurisu & Fergus, according to real estate records.
The A&B purchase includes 12.8 acres of fee-simple land in the 15,000-home master development. It was the first shopping center in Mililani and started with offices in 1969 and retailing, the second increment, in 1976.
Michael G. Wright, vice president of A&B Properties, said the mall is a "seasoned neighborhood center" that has always had high occupancy and a good mix of national and local tenants.
The center is fully occupied with 52 tenants, including Foodland, Ross Dress for Less, Blockbuster Video, Starbucks, Wahiawa General Hospital and branches of three major banks. It consists of two real estate parcels, split by Kipapa Drive.
For years, A&B has bought and sold commercial properties, building up a substantial portfolio of properties in Hawaii and on the mainland. After the closing of the Mililani deal, the company will have spent more than $280 million on real estate acquisitions in the last three years, said Allen Doane, president and CEO of the corporate parent. Mililani will be the 18th in that series.
"Fourteen of those 18 investments will have been in Hawaii, reflecting our continuing belief in the strength of Hawaii's future," Doane said in a press statement.
The A&B portfolio of 26 island properties and 18 on the mainland will have a total of more than 5 million square feet of leasable space.
Doane said the transaction allows A&B to use a substantial amount of the profits from recent property sales in a way that relieves the company from having to pay some capital gains taxes on those earlier sales.
The seller Morita Co., which owns a number of properties in Hawaii, is headed by Hideo Morita, son of the late Sony Corp. cofounder Akio Morita. The company has a Honolulu office but officials did not return calls.
Alexander & Baldwin Inc., one of Hawaii's historic "Big Five" companies, was founded in the sugar business in the 1800s. With the decline of agriculture, its biggest subsidiary now is Matson Navigation Co., which produced revenues of $797 million last year, 67 percent of A&B's annual total of $1.19 billion.
The second-biggest producer was property, with leasing and sales revenues of $160 million last year, 13.4 percent of the corporate total. A&B's food business, including sugar, ran third last year with revenues of $104 million or less than 9 percent of the total.
