Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has bought Manoa Marketplace for $82.4 million, increasing the concentration of Hawaii shopping centers owned by the local real estate investment and development firm.
A&B announced the purchase Monday and described it as an opportunity to expand its collection of Hawaii retail centers to include something in urban Honolulu.
Honolulu-based A&B is already the second-largest owner and operator of retail property in Hawaii. Its properties on Oahu include Aikahi Park Shopping Center, Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center, Kunia Shopping Center, Pearl Highlands Center, Waianae Mall and Waipio Shopping Center. The company also owns much of the commercial core of Kailua filled with retail.
On the neighbor islands, A&B owns Kahului Shopping Center and Napili Plaza on Maui, Lanihau Marketplace on Hawaii island and The Shops at Kukui‘ula on Kauai.
Only General Growth Properties Inc. controls more Hawaii retail property as the owner of the state’s largest shopping center, Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, along with Prince Kuhio Plaza on Hawaii island and Whalers Village on Maui.
A&B said Manoa Marketplace, which has about 60 tenants and is anchored by Safeway and Longs, is the only grocery-anchored retail complex in Manoa and the second-largest such property in urban Honolulu.
The Manoa center has 141,000 square feet of retail space spread over eight buildings on 10 acres of land. The marketplace is 91 percent leased and generates sales of $700 per square foot of leasable space, A&B said.
Chris Benjamin, A&B president and CEO, called Manoa Marketplace one of the strongest-performing retail centers on Oahu.
“The acquisitions reflect our continued confidence in the Hawaii real estate market and our belief that grocery-anchored retail centers will continue to outperform other commercial asset types throughout the real estate cycle,” he said in a statement.
A&B bought the center in two transactions: one for the buildings and one for the land under the buildings. The land was owned by the family of Richard Q.Y. Wong, the developer who established initial pieces of what is now the marketplace. The buildings were owned by an affiliate of California-based real estate investment firm Levy Affiliated, founded by Shaoul J. Levy.
The $82.4 million sale price disclosed by A&B represents the total for the two pieces. A breakdown was not disclosed.
Levy Affiliated bought the leasehold portion of the property in 2006 for $25 million, according to property records.
A&B’s purchase is part of a strategy the company announced in 2012 to expand its portfolio of income-producing commercial real estate in Hawaii while selling similar properties on the mainland to reshape the company in the wake of spinning off former ocean cargo transportation subsidiary Matson Inc.
Since then A&B has sold much of what had been close to $600 million in warehouses, retail centers and office buildings on the mainland and plowed proceeds into Hawaii property acquisitions.
A&B said much of the money to buy Manoa Marketplace is coming from several mainland property sales including an office complex in Washington that A&B sold in December.
