HILO — The National Park Service has acquired a 1,952-acre oceanfront property in Ka‘u from a Florida real estate developer.
HILO — The National Park Service has acquired a 1,952-acre oceanfront property in Ka‘u from a Florida real estate developer.
The $1.95 million purchase by the park service of the “Great Crack Property” from Joseph Gillespie III is the last piece of a settlement between First Citizens Bank of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Hilo businessman Ken Fujiyama and his Ken Direction Corp. to settle the bank’s foreclosure claim concerning a defaulted mortgage on the then-Naniloa Volcanoes Resort.
Dismissals of all claims with prejudice, which means they cannot be reclaimed, were filed on behalf of all plaintiffs and defendants Aug. 28 in Hilo Circuit Court. Those dismissals indicate the sale of the property closed last month.
The property’s name comes from a distinguishing topographic feature — a 6-mile long crack in a lava field along Kilauea’s Southwest Rift Zone.
The crack, which is 60 feet wide and 60 feet deep in some places, is located on the makai side of Highway 19 between the 46- and 47-mile markers, about 4 1/2 miles by road to the northeast of Pahala, just beyond the southwestern boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Despite being on private property, the Great Crack is popular among hikers and can be found on numerous internet sites aimed at visitors.
