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Long Vacant Niketown Property in Waikiki Sold In Major Sale

Edmund Garman
/
CC BY 2.0 / Flickr

In local real estate, the big news this week is two major purchases – at opposite ends of O?ahu.

The Niketown property in Waik?k? may see some movement after sitting vacant for nearly a decade. Robertson Properties Group had been working up plans to redevelop the parcel, formally known as King Kal?kaua Plaza, into a boutique hotel. Instead, it has just sold the property to an entity owned by Woodridge Capital Partners for just over $51 million.

The building originally opened in 1998 and has had three tenants: Official All-Star Café, which closed in 2005, Banana Republic, which closed in January 2009, and Niketown, which closed in September 2009.

Robertson Properties had controlled King Kal?kaua Plaza since 2010. It still owns another property in Waik?k? that has had better luck: Center of Waik?k?, on the site of the former Waik?k? Theatre, with such tenants as California Pizza Kitchen.

On the West side, an affiliate of the New York-based Blackstone Group has purchased the 520 homes that comprise the Kalaeloa Rental Homes portfolio from Rockpoint Group for $211.5 million. These are all renovated former military apartments from what had once been Barbers Point Naval Air Station.

It’s Blackstone’s first purchase of 2019, but hardly its first Hawai?i purchase. In the past 18 months, it has acquired Hawaii properties — mainly resorts — worth nearly $2 billion.

A. Kam Napier is the editor-in-chief of Pacific Business News.
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