Behind the Deal: Alexander & Baldwin's intriguing purchase of Manoa Marketplace
For the first time
ever, the University of Hawaii Manoa Shidler College of Business, UH Athletics
and the CCIM Hawaii Chapter teamed up for an event. Besides networking with
such professionals as Shidler College Dean Vance Roley, Linda Gee of Standard
Commercial and CCIM President Anthony Provenzano of Sofos Realty, it was
fascinating to hear the “behind the deal” stories from key executives from such
Hawaii commercial real estate heavyweights as A&B and BlackSand Capital.
Jeff Pauker, VP of investments for A&B, spoke about how
the tricky Manoa Marketplace deal came about. The deal was a challenge because the
land and buildings were owned by separate entities. Pauker said from start to
finish, it took A&B about 18 months to get this deal done. A&B first
approached the owners of the land, a local family who was ready to sell. There
also was less than 10 years left on the ground lease, so when A&B
approached the owner of the buildings, an entity in California, A&B, in its
proposal, mentioned that there wasn’t much time left on the ground lease and
that it would be raising rents. Pauker said the short timeframe sped up the
process and the California firm eventually sold its interest to A&B, thus
giving it full ownership of the marketplace. A&B said the marketplace is a
very attractive asset, as it is the only grocery -and drug-store anchored
shopping center in the highly coveted and affluent area of Manoa.
Bryan Li, executive vice president of acquisitions and asset
management for BlackSand Capital, gave insight on its recent sale of Pearlridge
Uptown II, the portion that includes T.J. Maxx. BlackSand made a 100 percent return
on this investment. In 2011, BlackSand bought the asset, which included the
former J.C. Penney building for about $36.4 million. It then redeveloped this
section of the state’s second largest shopping mall with successful tenants
such as Ross Dress for Less and T.J. Maxx, along with dozens of other inline
tenants. But with less than 15 years left on the ground lease with Kamehameha
Schools, BlackSand decided it should sell Pearlridge Uptown II before the
ground lease expired. Li said it went straight to Washington Prime and O’Connor
Mall, which owned the rest of Pearlridge. The key Uptown II portion, which
comes with development opportunities if the surface parking area is utilized to
build more retail buildings, was something Washington Prime and O’Connor
coveted. Washington and O’Connor didn’t mind the ground lease issue and wanted
to own the entire mall and that key Uptown II portion. Washington and O’Connor
went on the buy Uptown II for about $70 million.
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