The Wainaku Executive Center, a former C. Brewer &Co. headquarters turned upscale event center, will soon be hitting the market.
The Wainaku Executive Center, a former C. Brewer &Co. headquarters turned upscale event center, will soon be hitting the market.
The approximately 12,000-square-foot building and 12-acre waterfront property will be listed for sale next week for $8.25 million, said Rebecca Keliihoomalu, sales vice president for MacArthur Sotheby’s International Realty.
The property, which has a panoramic view of Hilo Bay, is owned by Wainaku Ventures LLC, whose sole principal is the Edmund C. Olson Trust II.
Ed Olson, trust president, paid $7.7 million for the property in 2012.
It has since been used to host events, including the annual Hilo Brewfest, weddings and other gatherings.
Wainaku Center Director Margaret Stanley said Olson is selling the property to focus on the Hilo Naniloa Hotel, of which he is a 50 percent owner.
When he acquired the center, Olson said he was partly interested in using the property for a small boutique hotel.
Stanley said the property remains zoned industrial.
Keliihoomalu said the center still has the potential for a hotel use, and an application to change the zoning to resort will be filed.
The property, with 3,000 feet of shoreline along the west end of the bay, is a unique opportunity for potential buyers, Keliihoomalu said.
“It’s a caliber unto itself,” she said. “It’s very unique, one of a kind.”
The center was previously part of the Hilo sugar mill.
C. Brewer relocated its headquarters there from Honolulu in 1998. It dissolved three years later.
C. Brewer Chairman J.W.A. Doc Buyers then acquired the property for $3.5 million to turn it into an upscale resort. He died in 2006, and the center continued to be leased for office space.
It was later listed for sale in 2010.
Stanley said the center will continue to take reservations.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.