• The good neighbor • OHA’s ‘money pit’ now at $28,128,000 and growing • Looking for timely real estate information The good neighbor I have to tell you an incident that occurred to me over the holiday weekend. I was
• The good neighbor • OHA’s ‘money pit’ now at $28,128,000 and growing • Looking for timely real estate information
The good neighbor
I have to tell you an incident that occurred to me over the holiday weekend.
I was traveling on the Westside and needed gas, so I stopped off at a station in Waimea. I had just turned off the ignition and was about to get out, when a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and asked if he could fill the tank for me. Surprised, I stammered out, “S-s-sure.”
He proceeded to fill it, then came back around and asked if I wanted my windows cleaned and my oil and tires checked. I said, “Uh, okay.”
When he was finished, he leaned in my window and said, “Looks like you’re good to go, sir.” Then just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.
Bewildered, I turned to my wife and said, “Who the heck was he?”
She looked at me and said, “Why, honey, don’t you know? That was Myles Emura, the most helpful man on Kaua‘i. You never know where he might turn up.”
I smiled back at her and said, “What a generous and selfless man.”
As we pulled out and continued on, she turned to me again and said, “You know, the pope is considering Myles for sainthood.”
Steven McMacken
Lihu‘e
OHA’s ‘money pit’ now at $28,128,000 and growing
When the OHA Board of Trustees authorized the purchase of the Gentry Pacific Design Center this past summer for $21,370,000, I was one of several trustees with serious concerns about the purchase. There were just too many “unknowns” about the property.
As I feared the costs associated with the Design Center has skyrocketed to nearly $30 million. On Nov. 1, the Board of Trustees authorized nearly $7,000,000 in expenditures:
1. Up to $663,000 in essential costs relating to:
a. Tenant Improvement Allowances – $400,000/year for up to 20,000 of the leasable square footage which will be leased or renewed through June 30, 2013; and
b. Immediate Due Diligence Projects – $263,000, including the replacement of a 23-year-old fire alarm system ($100,000);
2. Up to $6,095,000 in design and construction and non-OHA tenant relocation costs relating to OHA’s relocation to COB; and
3. “Secondary Repairs” – It should be noted that OHA still has to pay for repairs totaling an estimated $404,000 beginning in year three, mainly to repaint the building exterior ($110,000) and to replace the single-ply roofing membrane ($250,000).
As I have said before, it makes absolutely no sense that OHA is spending a great deal of money to purchase and renovate an 80-year-old Design Center full of existing tenants instead of using the $28,128,000 to build a brand new state-of-the-art office building on land we already own.
My preferred location for a new OHA Headquarters is on the Kaka’ako Makai settlement properties that we recently received from the state. The Kaka’ako waterfront is an excellent place for economic development and a permanent home for OHA’s headquarters.
Is anyone listening? If you are interested in why OHA would spend all this money on an old building that was not for sale, please call 594-1857 or write to Trustee Oswald Stender.
Rowena M. Akana
Trustee-at-Large
Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Honolulu
Looking for timely real estate information
Please consider listing all real estate transactions as they occur each month for the previous month instead of listing just a selected few transactions that took place three months ago.
Complete and timely listing of real estate transactions is real news in my opinion and allows your readers to have a realistic view of the real estate market including prices of those units that have been recently sold, hopefully the previous month.
The real estate transactions reported on Friday, Nov. 6, are for the month of August and are incomplete. There are only six listings for the North Shore District. My real estate friend said that there were six residential sales, three vacant land sales and 11 condo sales for the month of August on the North Shore. Only six of these were reported and only three months later.
Complete and timely information on this subject would be very much appreciated. I would suggest that this could be considered a service to your readers. In my view, it would add value to your newspaper.
Sylvia Partridge
Princeville
• Editor’s note: Real estate transactions are submitted to TGI by Realtor Carol Cummings. Transactions are printed in the Real Estate section the Friday immediately following the submittal in an effort to minimize delay.
