Restaurant Row
up for sale
Waterfront Plaza & Restaurant Row, a 16-year-old complex of office and retail space off Ala Moana in Kakaako, is likely to be offered to investors as early as next week.
The Michigan-based firm Kojaian Management Corp., which bought the struggling property just over three years ago, has listed the property with the international real estate banking firm Secured Capital Corp., according to individuals briefed on the sale.
Andrew Friedlander, president and chief executive officer of Colliers Monroe Friedlander Inc., the real estate firm that manages and leases the property, said he was not surprised that the owners would put the property up for sale.
"When Colliers took over the property the occupancy was in the high 60 percent and now its approximately 97 percent," Friedlander said, adding that proposed waterfront improvements in the Aloha Tower area and the University of Hawaii's medical school expansion into Kakaako will only serve to make the property more appealing to potential buyers.
"It will be very desirable for those people who do not mind leasehold property," he said.
Waterfront Plaza & Restaurant Row was developed beginning in 1988 with a $113.5 million loan from Teachers Insurance. The complex, which includes seven five-story buildings with a total of 425,000 square feet of office space and 89,000 square feet of retail space, is built on leasehold property owned by Kamehameha Schools. The leasehold agreement expires in 2046.
Developer Bruce Stark, who also built the adjacent WaterPark Tower, ran into financial problems in the early 1990s and Teachers Insurance foreclosed on the property. It's currently appraised at $54 million.