A subsidiary of a Japanese company has unloaded 252 acres of South Kohala property for $70 million less than it paid in 1990. ADVERTISING A subsidiary of a Japanese company has unloaded 252 acres of South Kohala property for $70
A subsidiary of a Japanese company has unloaded 252 acres of South Kohala property for $70 million less than it paid in 1990.
Elleair Hawaii Inc., which is owned by Japan’s Daio Paper Corp., sold the property on the north side of Waikoloa Beach Resort, just makai of Queen Kaahumanu Highway, for $5 million. According to Hawaii property tax records, Elleair purchased the property for $75 million.
That deal hasn’t closed yet, but buyer Peter Savio said he has already sold the land to Hawaii Island developer Brian Anderson and a group he is working with.
Savio, who runs real estate offices on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island, said the Waikoloa property was part of a larger group of properties he bought. That group also included the Maui Beach Hotel, a vacant lot at the Maui Palms, which he does plan to develop, and a golf course on Maui.
“Our intention was to develop (the Waikoloa land),” Savio said Wednesday.
His lenders, though, were less enthusiastic about him buying those properties and taking on the debt to develop the Waikoloa plot. So, through word of mouth, he found a buyer — Anderson. Savio said he thought Anderson paid a little closer to $6 million for the property, although he wasn’t certain.
Anderson late Wednesday was attempting to get a comment on the sale from the two principal buyers, with whom he was working. They did not provide a response as of press time.
The sales price is just more than half of what the county has determined to be the property’s market value of $9.5 million. The county collected about $100,000 in property taxes last year for the undeveloped land.
Matt Davis, associate director with San Diego real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield, which represented the seller, said the Japanese company was looking to “reposition” itself and was selling assets.
The property has an approved subdivision application and a final plan approval, as well as a special management area permit that will allow for up to 420 residential units. Davis said the planned unit development only calls for 195 units — 92 single-family homes and 103 units in multiunit buildings. That approved plan also allows an 18-hole golf course.
Waikoloa Beach Resort’s 2014 annual report to the state Land Use Commission referenced the golf course.
“Completion of construction on the Waikoloa Homesites Venture’s golf course, which commenced on Jan. 26, 1995, remains deferred pending a change in market conditions, which will not support a project of this nature at this time,” the report said, adding that Elleair Hawaii was Waikoloa Homesites Venture’s successor, via a merger. The 2011 annual report said the Hawaii County Planning Commission gave the project an extension, through April 2013, to build the golf course.
