Costco buys Ewa site for distribution center

Costco has made a huge real estate investment on Oahu, buying a more-or-less finished 44-acre industrial park property on the Ewa plain within the growing master-planned Ho‘opili community.

The retailer paid $130 million for the property and plans to create a distribution center to serve its stores and customers in Hawaii.

Commercial real estate firm Colliers International, which brokered the sale for Costco and a seller that was previously trying to sell the property as 32 subdivided lots, announced the deal Wednesday.

Colliers provided a general comment from Costco saying that development plans are in an early stage, and that the envisioned distribution center would support the retailer’s operations in Hawaii where it has seven stores, including some with gas stations, as well as e-commerce business to its member customers.

“This investment will help Costco to advance the future of its business in Hawaii,” said the statement from Colliers attributed to Costco.

Officials at Costco based in Washington state would not add to the comment provided by Colliers on Wednesday.

Costco has been expanding its distribution system in recent years, including the acquisition of a logistics company and purchasing industrial sites on the mainland for development into distribution centers.

The nearest Costco warehouse-stores to the Ho‘opili site are in Kapolei and Waipio, which are about 4 miles and 9 miles away, respectively.

The seller of the property dubbed Ho‘opili Business Park, California-based Jupiter Holdings LLC, last year began installing infrastructure including roads and utilities on the site and was slated to complete the work by March as part of an effort to sell 32 fee-simple lots each ranging from about a half-acre to 3.3 acres.

Jupiter bought the 44-acre site from the master developer of Ho‘opili, homebuilder D.R. Horton, in 2019 for $21.5 million, according to property records.

Zoning for the property allows a mix of commercial uses including retail, warehousing, medical facilities, hotels, auto dealerships and other things.