Troubled Beijing developer sells Kapolei land

Some 484 acres of land in Kapolei have been sold at a loss by a financially distressed Beijing-based developer that, at one point, wanted to create a residential development of 2,500 “upscale homes” including a lake for stand-up paddleboarding, swimming and other water activities.

Oceanwide Resort Community HI LLC reportedly sold the property for $92.9 million — a loss of $24.8 million — to WT Laulima Holdings LLC in a deal brokered by Colliers International.

The sale is part of Oceanwide’s efforts to unload financially distressed properties it owns from New York to Northern and Southern California amid a Chinese-­government clampdown on overseas investment.

Oceanwide is one of China’s largest property investors that have run into financial problems since Beijing clamped down on overseas investment starting in 2018.

Oceanwide’s Kapolei deal includes a much smaller parcel of 11 acres of land that was up for sale at one point for more than $34 million that would provide “direct access to Ko Olina” via an extension of Kapolei Parkway, Oceanwide said in offering the parcel for sale.

The 484 acres of land were bought by WT Laulima Holdings LLC from Oceanwide Resort, which has been selling mainland investments and reportedly dumped the Kapolei property at a loss after buying it for $103.4 million in 2016 with the intention of developing 2,500 homes, a golf course, an elementary school and a transit hub.

Representatives for neither company responded to requests for comment.

The future of the parcels now owned by WT Laulima Holdings remains unclear.

In February 2021, Oceanwide Resort Community HI LLC wrote to the state Land Use Commission that it intended to comply with rules by the state Office of Planning and city Department of Planning and Permitting to “provide affordable housing opportunities for low to moderate income residents of the State of Hawaii to the satisfaction of the City and County of Honolulu. The location and distribution of the affordable housing shall be under such terms as are mutually agreeable between the Petitioner and the City and County of Honolulu.”

Creating more affordable housing and rental properties has since emerged as a cornerstone of housing policies by Mayor Rick Blangiardi and new Gov. Josh Green.

At one point Oceanwide Resort advertised its 11-acre parcel as available for high-density mixed use, allowing for “wide range commercial, residential, and limited service hotel uses” with height limits of up to 90 feet, apartment rentals, condos, “retail on ground floor” and “medical office.”

The company called Kapolei the “Fastest Growing City.”

“The numbers show that Kapolei is and will continue to be the fastest growing region in the state,” Oceanwide Resort said in promoting its land for sale. “(U)sing 2020 as a baseline, by 2050 the population will increase by 40 percent, housing will grow by 52 percent, and jobs will increase by 77 percent. Kapolei is also ethnically diverse, relatively young and well educated.”

According to media reports, the properties include 26 acres that Oceanwide at one point hoped to develop into an Atlantis-branded resort but since sold off.

Oceanwide’s “directors are of the view that the disposal is necessary and proper and represents a good timing and opportunity for the group for settling its outstanding indebtedness and also reducing the recurring finance costs,” Chairman Han Xiao­sheng said in a filing to the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

The current plan calls for Oceanwide to generate cash by selling assets that have yet to be seized by creditors.

In January, Oceanwide was served with a default notice for a $175 million loan backed by the group’s troubled 80 South Street skyscraper project in Lower Manhattan, according to media reports. New York-based lender DW Partners demanded the immediate payment of $165 million outstanding on the loan against the asset after Oceanwide missed a $1.3 million interest payment.

Oceanwide, at the time, also was shopping for a buyer for its New York South Street Seaport area after acquiring the property from Howard Hughes Corp. for $390 million in 2016.

Then in October, creditors reportedly foreclosed on Oceanwide’s unfinished San Francisco mixed-use Oceanwide Center, which had served as collateral for about $320 million in notes that Oceanwide failed to repay.

In downtown Los Angeles, in the meantime, Oceanwide’s $1 billion Oceanwide Plaza was saddled with nearly $240 million in claims by contractors who say they had not been paid.

Oceanwide has since announced the resignations of its CEO and executive director, chairman, chief risk control and legal officer and supervisory board chairman and a vice president in a filing with the Shenzhen exchange.