Shimogawa Scoops

Southwest Airlines is seeking approval from Hawaii regulators to plant its operations in the state and start flights as soon as later this year, according to public documents. The Dallas, Texas-based airline giant, which flies to more than 100 destinations, is scheduled to ask the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to issue the company a revocable permit for the purpose of opening its airline operations at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. The board is scheduled to meet on March 9 to discuss Southwest Airlines’ proposal, among other agenda items. Southwest would shake-up the Hawaii market as it goes head-to-head with the state’s flagship airline, Hawaiian Airlines. It’s not known if Southwest will be operating interisland flights yet. However, Southwest’s presence in the Islands only enhances the state’s top industry – tourism – but others as well including real estate. This week, Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly, speaking to The Dallas Morning News,

The billionaire German co-founder of Sun Microsystems and early investor of Google has purchased a Hawaii estate in the ultra-exclusive Hualalai Resort totaling a little more than an acre for $14.2 million, Shimogawa Scoops has learned. Andreas “Andy” Bechtolsheim, who has a net worth of more than $7 billion, purchased a 6,298-square-foot mansion that includes three-bedrooms and 5.5-bathrooms that occupies a 1.37-acre parcel on the Big Island. Built in 2014, the entire property has a total assessed value of about $8.2 million, public records show. The Silicon Valley tech titan is the chairman and co-founder of Arista Networks, a Silicon Valley company that sells cloud networking services to such big-name clients as Microsoft. Bechtolsheim is notoriously known for giving Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page their first round of funding in 1998 before the dynamic duo had even incorporated the famous tech giant.

Macy’s has sold its seven-acre distribution warehouse property in the Campbell Industrial Park in West Oahu to a San Francisco real estate investment company for $26.75 million, Shimogawa Scoops has learned. Located at 91-262 Oihana St. in Kapolei, the property, which includes a 162,923-square-foot building, was sold to Graymark Capital, which also owns the Waipio Business Center in Waipahu in Central Oahu. The purchase comes out to $84.69 per square foot on the land and $164.19 per square foot on the building. Graymark said it purchased the property at about 66 percent replacement cost through a sale/leaseback to Macy’s for 10 years at 52 percent on the square footage. The firm plans to collect credit protected cashflows and increase rents to market upon expiration of the lease. Graymark, which focuses on the San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Hawaii markets, acquires and manages institutional-quality commercial