Dec 13, 2013, 12:58pm HST

Luxury condo row could front Ala Moana Center

Duane Shimogawa
Reporter- Pacific Business News
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A row of luxury condominium buildings could line the front of Hawaii’s largest shopping mall along Ala Moana Boulevard under a plan being developed by a Honolulu real estate investment firm and Ala Moana Center owner General Growth Properties Inc., multiple sources have told PBN.

BlackSand Capital and General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) are working on a joint venture to build several six- to eight-story luxury condo buildings along Ala Moana Boulevard from the corner of Piikoi Street to where the Nieman Marcus department store is located in the mall, sources said.

Ian MacNaughton, managing partner and co-founder of BlackSand Capital, told PBN that the firm doesn’t have an agreement signed with General Growth, and has nothing to publicly announce yet.

Ala Moana Center spokesman Scott Creel told PBN in an email that the mall doesn’t have anything to share at this time.

Sources tell PBN that they have seen renderings of the projects, and that the joint venture is a 50-50 arrangement between BlackSand Capital and Chicago-based GGP.

Early estimates put the price ranges of these units from $15 million to $50 million, sources said.

BlackSand Capital has been busy during the past couple of months, announcing plans to redevelop the King’s Village Shopping Center property in Waikiki into a luxury hotel-condominium. The firm is also a part of a partnership that acquired the Ohana Waikiki West hotel with plans to upgrade the 659-room property into an upscale resort.

BlackSand Capital, which includes investors from the Hawaii development firms Kobayashi Group and The MacNaughton Group, has already invested in Pearlridge Uptown II in Aiea and the Maile Sky Court Hotel in Waikiki.

Additionally, the firm, which is headed up by Bert A. “BJ” Kobayashi Jr. and MacNaughton, also has ties to ongoing luxury residential developments such as the Waihonua at Kewalo condominium and the One Ala Moana condominium, two Honolulu high-rises under construction.