May 29, 2009, Honolulu, Hawaii – The former Weyerhaeuser box plant located at 900 North Nimitz Highway sold today for $20 million dollars. The property is located adjacent to Home Depot and the future home of Lowes Home Improvement Center. The buyer is a local partnership that includes the owners of Ba-Le Restaurants and Island Flooring Company, Inc., both of whom will utilize portions of the property for their specific business. “It is a natural fit for the new owners,” said Scott L. Mitchell, Executive Vice President at Colliers Monroe Friedlander, and one of the two listing brokers representing Weyerhaeuser.
At a time when transaction flow is incredibly low and lending on assets of this size is difficult at best, there was sentiment by some in the commercial brokerage community that the property would not sell, especially as an industrial product. According to Guy V. Kidder, Vice President and co-listor on the property with Mitchell; “There is always at least one good buyer for every property and when this buyer surfaced, we knew it was the right deal.”
The sale includes the two-story, 165,900 square feet warehouse building situated on 4 acres of fee simple industrial mixed-use zoned land at the corner of Nimitz Highway and Alakawa Street in Iwilei. Weyerhaeuser ceased operations in 2008 after years of serving Hawaii’s marketplace. The timing could not have been more ideal for Mr. Lam, owner of the Ba-Le Restaurant stores who said “this property is a dream come true for him and his family”. The facility will give him the platform to launch the continued growth of both his restaurant chain and a growing list of retail products they make and sell to the general public.