From the September 15, 2000 print edition
S.F. firm to make fourth Hawaii real estate buy
Lyn Danninger
San Francisco real estate investment firm
Bay West Investment Co. LLC is about to make its fourth
commercial real estate
purchase in Hawaii. This time the property is the Big
Island's 95-unit Kailua Bay Resort condominiums.
Bay
West will pay $4.6 million for the property located
in downtown Kailua-Kona. The deal is scheduled to close
on Sept. 23,
says Christine Camp, president of Avalon Development
Co., which has been retained by Bay West to help identify
suitable
properties and coordinate financing with local lenders.
Bay
West purchased the Kona property from Japanese firm
Sasaki Saison, which paid $9.95 million for the property
in 1990.
That company purchased the property from another
Japanese investor, Kotobuki Kanko, which had paid $7.5
million for it the
previous year.
Bay West's latest move -- the fourth
since 1998 -- is part of an aggressive strategy to
focus on Hawaii's still-attractive real
estate market, says Camp.
Bay West's most recent purchase
was the 376-unit Sunpoint at Gentry-Waipio for $23.2
million. The company plans to spend
$4.5 million over the next few years to upgrade the
facilities.
Other purchases include 105 units at Diamond
Head's Pualei Circle and the 95-room Waikiki Marc hotel.
The Pualei Circle
rental units have since been converted to condominium
units with many of the refurbished units already resold.
Camp says that
project is now one year ahead of schedule and has been
so successful for the company that Bay West has already
finished
paying for the land.
The company is also in the process
of repositioning another one of its recent purchases,
the 95-unit Waikiki Marc Resort, as a
boutique hotel.
The company plans to renovate the lobby
and common areas using a Balinese-contemporary art
theme. They would like to
showcase the work of local artists at the hotel as
well, according to Jonathan McManus, one of Bay West's
managing partners.
Bay West paid $6 million for the
property, purchasing it from Japanese firm GGS (HI)
Inc., which originally paid in excess of
$11 million for the property several years ago.
Bay
West's plan is to continue to identify, purchase and
reposition Hawaii properties at least throughout the
next year while there is still a window of opportunity,
according to Camp and McManus.
"Their [Bay West's] feeling is that by next year,
the market will be so much better that their opportunity
to reposition properties
is limited," says Camp.
Bay West's managing partners,
McManus, Craig Valley and Jerry Lynch, have a long
history of condominium conversions.
While the company
operates out of San Francisco, both Lynch and McManus
have local ties. McManus has also now returned
to live in Hawaii.
Reach Lyn Danninger by e-mail at ldanninger@bizjournals.com or
by phone at 955-8043
Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
- September 18, 2000
http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2000/09/18/story2.html
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