C. Brewer sells
456 Maui acres

Local developers have
created 2- to 3-acre house lots
on the former mac nut land

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

Local developers have purchased 456 acres of former C. Brewer & Co. macadamia nut land on Maui and already have sales contracts for 150 two- and three-acre lots.

Brian Anderson, head of Big Island-based real estate partnership CGM LLC, said today that preliminary subdivision approval was already in place when his group contracted to buy the land early this year.

The purchase is now complete, for a total of $10.2 million, and site development work by contractor Goodfellow Bros. Inc. will start next month, Anderson said.

The land is part of 20,000 acres held by Wailuku Agribusiness, the Maui part of the nearly 70,000 acres of land that C. Brewer put on the market in January.

J. Alan Kugle, Brewer's chief executive officer for real estate, said it is attractive land, north of Wailuku. The deal is relatively small for Brewer, given the total amount of land it is attempting to sell, Kugle said. He said Anderson's group obtained subdivision approval for about 180 agricultural lots, each of which can have one house.

"We're selling you a two-acre or three-acre mac nut farm," said real estate agent Anderson. It is up to the individual buyers to see that they keep enough farming on the land to meet the legal definition of agricultural use.

In May, after a final approval from the federal government, Anderson was legally able to accept purchase contracts. "In the first six weeks we sold 150, at an average price of $262,000," Anderson said.

The lots are only about three miles north of downtown Wailuku but they are on country land with views of the ocean, Haleakala and Central Maui, Anderson said.

He said his group's plan calls for 184 lots.

C. Brewer & Co. put 67,000 acres of its Big Island and Maui land on the market in January, listing the properties with C.B. Richard Ellis, a worldwide real estate firm.

Kugle said at the time that Brewer hoped to sell the properties to a relatively small number of buyers.