May 21, 2013, 12:05pm HST Updated: May 21, 2013, 2:21pm HST
By: Duane Shimogawa, Reporter- Pacific Business News
The James Campbell Co. is looking to sell 516 acres of mostly undeveloped land in West Oahu known as Kapolei West, a potential mixed-use residential and commercial master-planned community that would connect the City of Kapolei with Ko Olina Resort.
East-West Financial Services Ltd. is marketing the property, which could fetch tens of millions of dollars.
The Washington D.C.-based private investment banking firm declined comment on the possible sale.
Kapolei Property Development, a real estate subsidiary of the James Campbell Co., won zoning approval in 2008 from the Honolulu City Council for the 516 acres in Kapolei West, which were rezoned from agriculture to multifamily A-1 and A-2 and apartment mixed-use for some 2,400 townhouses and apartments, as well as preservation land for a planned golf course.
The land is key to the residential component of the Kapolei Area Long Range Master Plan, which aims to infuse a variety of housing options to expand the base residents in the area.
Kapolei West was projected to create 2,575 construction jobs and about 3,600 permanent jobs.
It is one of three future projects for James Campbell Co. that cover a total of more than 2,600 acres in West Oahu, including the 1,781-acre Makaiwa Hills residential mixed-use community on the mauka side of Farrington Highway and the 345-acre Kapolei Harborside industrial land located between Kalaeloa Harbor and Kalaeloa Boulevard.
Richard Dahl, CEO of James Campbell Co., could not be immediately reached for comment.
However, industry observers are quick to point out that there are many similarities with last week’s news, first reported by PBN, regarding the possible sale of Kaneohe Ranch Co. LLC and the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation’s entire commercial real estate portfolio, which includes the town center of Kailua in Windward Oahu.
Observers say stakeholders in these two legacy families in Hawaii are most likely pushing the need for income.
“There’s a general theme feeding the base of the [James Campbell Co.] family, [being that] there [are] now stakeholders [that are] no longer descendents, [so] there’s a need to produce income,” a source told PBN. “So there is a strong motivation to move assets.”
Add that to a generally “hot” real estate market in Hawaii and that has caused sellers to look to make some money off of their assets.
Kapolei-based James Campbell Co., the master developer of the City of Kapolei, is a private real estate company with assets including ground leases, office, retail, and industrial properties in Washington D.C., and 16 states across the country.