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Aiea centers being marketed as pair

Two Aiea shopping malls are for sale at an asking price of $25.7 million for both. They are being marketed as a single unit.

Pearl Kai Shopping Center and the nearby Westridge Center, became available after a state Circuit Court decision awarded them to lender GE Capital Hawaii Inc.

The properties themselves are running well and almost 100 percent occupied, said Matthew Bittick, general manager Grubb & Ellis/CBI Inc., the local commercial real estate firm that has the listing.

"You have two retail shopping centers located in probably the best market in the state," Bittick said. There is a big demand for space in both of them and cash flow is strong, he said.

Westridge has 60,000 square feet of leasable space and stands on land leased from the state. Pearl Kai, with a little over 108,000 square feet, is on land leased from Kamehameha Schools. The total land area of both shopping centers is 14.4 acres, said Bittick, who said he expects they will be sold before the end of the year.

They became available after GE Capital brought a foreclosure action in February against their owner, Tokai Rayon Co., which had borrowed $24 million from GE Capital to finance its acquisition of the centers in 1991. By February, $20 million was still owing and interest costs and attorneys' fees were mounting, prompting the foreclosure suit.

CPF earmarks funds for City Bank

Central Pacific Financial Corp. said it raised $40 million from its part of an offering of a new issue of trust equities. The company, parent of 24-branch Central Pacific Bank, said it intends to use the proceeds in its effort to take over another Hawaii bank business, CB Bancshares Inc., parent of 21-branch City Bank.

The acquisition of CB Bancshares, which has been opposed by that company's management, is awaiting some regulatory approvals and is the subject of lawsuits. If it does not take place, Central Pacific said, the new capital may be used to repurchase some of CPF's own common shares.

Strong September for Hawaiian

Hawaiian Airlines carried 426,530 passengers in its interisland, mainland-Hawaii and Hawaii-South Pacific scheduled services last month, an increase of 5.4 percent from 404,550 passengers in the previous September. Thanks to expanded mainland service, the airline said it flew 29.7 percent more revenue passenger miles (one paying passenger carried one mile) last month, for a system-wide total of 454.9 million compared to 350.7 million in the year-earlier month.

Available seat miles were up by a smaller percentage, 5.1 percent year-over-year, at 554.5 million last month from 527.4 million in September 2002. The result of capacity not rising as fast as passenger demand was an increase in load factor, meaning the airline flew with fewer empty seats.

Hawaiian flew with 82 percent of its seats occupied by paying passengers last month, a 15.5 point increase from 66.5 percent in September 2002. September is typically a soft month for Hawaii tourism.