Advertiser building
on Kapiolani
up for sale

The owner of the Honolulu Advertiser is putting the paper's landmark headquarters and old printing plant on the market.

Gannett Pacific Corp. recently retained Grubb & Ellis/CBI to list the 1.94-acre, 76-year-old property at 605 Kapiolani Blvd.

The asking price has not been set but the property will likely sell for several times the property's tax-assessed value of about $8.5 million.

Mike Fisch, the Advertiser's president and publisher, did not return calls.

Hugh Damon, managing director at Grubb & Ellis/CBI, said his office is working with Grubb & Ellis' New York office to market the property. He said the building already has received inquiries from interested buyers, whom he declined to name.

Damon said the listing is for the entire 78,439-square-foot property bordered by the intersection of Kapiolani Boulevard, South Street and Kawaiahao Street.

The site includes the three-story Advertiser newsroom and business office, its parking lot and its printing plant. The Advertiser recently relocated its printing operations to a new $82 million plant in Kapolei.

Damon said one of the options is to retain the building's structure and lease back some of the office space to the Advertiser, which would keep its publishing and business operations on site.

Plans also call for the development of condominiums, he said.

The building was built in 1929. Gannett Co. bought the property for $10 million when it purchased the Advertiser for $250 million and sold the Honolulu Star-Bulletin to its former owner Liberty Newspapers LP.

The sale comes as real estate activity has boomed in Kakaako and the Kapiolani corridor. Last August, Alexander & Baldwin Inc. purchased the 2.7-acre property behind the Advertiser Building on South and Kawaiahao streets.

A&B said it plans to build a high-rise condominium on the property, which currently is used as a parking lot for Advertiser employees. An A&B spokeswoman had no comment when asked whether the company was interested in the Advertiser Building.

In the early 1990s, the Advertiser fielded inquires from local and mainland interests to redevelop a high-rise luxury condominium complex on the property's parking lot. But the talks were scuttled as real estate values and condo sales plummeted with the downturn in Japanese investment.