$80 million Kaua'i development project set

As envisioned by Ernest W. Moody and business partner Stephen Grogan, the Gateway Village would lead to the Ocean Bay Plantation at Hanama'ulu. The land was purchased last year from Amfac/JMB Hawaii Inc. Group 70 International

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Las Vegas casino-game inventor is trying his hand at real estate development on Kaua'i, with a planned $80 million low-density residential community and golf course on 460 acres of former sugarcane land in Lihu'e.

Ernest W. Moody is proposing to develop 420 homes, a Robin Nelson-designed golf course and a small neighborhood retail center on 460 acres he bought last March from Amfac/JMB Hawaii Inc. for $3.45 million.

Moody's EWM Kaua'i LLC recently filed a draft environmental impact statement outlining the Hanama'ulu project, called Ocean Bay Plantation, which is expected to be developed over 10 to 15 years and create 925 construction jobs during that time, plus 250 permanent jobs when complete.

Stephen Grogan, Moody's business partner and managing director of EWM, said the development team has met with community leaders and has received support from Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.

A first phase would include the 18-hole golf course, a clubhouse and 73 single-family house lots built over two years.

Other aspects of the development would include extending a landscape buffer along Kuhio Highway, a grass outdoor theater area, parks, public shoreline access, reintroducing native plants and preserving the area's wetlands.

A 40,000-square-foot retail center would include restaurants, clothing and convenience stores, and space for the Kaua'i Visitors Bureau to serve residents and tourists passing by.

The homes would be clustered in several areas around the golf course. About 200 units are designed to be single-family residences; the rest, multifamily homes.

Both the residences and commercial buildings have been designed with a sugar plantation theme.

"We wanted to reflect that historical part of Kaua'i," said Norman Hong, vice chairman of Honolulu-based architectural firm Group 70.

Ocean Bay Plantation is the first real estate development by Moody, a Colorado native who created a video poker game and heads the casino game development company Action Gaming in Las Vegas.

Grogan said Moody would like to fast-track golf course construction to begin next year, though several government approvals are still required, including changes to zoning and the country general plan, a state land-use boundary amendment, a permit for conservation district use and a special management area permit.

County Councilman Bryan Baptiste said EWM has met with the council and shared conceptual plans for Ocean Bay Plantation, but he said yesterday that it is too early to form an opinion of the project.

"They have quite a number of agencies to go through," he said. "I'm hoping that if there are community concerns, they will work with the community to address their concerns."

Keith Nitta, a Kaua'i Planning Department official familiar with Moody's plans, was out of the office and unavailable for comment on Monday and yesterday.

Amfac shut down its Lihu'e plantation about 16 months ago, and put thousands of acres up for sale, including the 460 acres that eventually were purchased by Moody.

The property includes a little more than a mile of bay and open ocean coastline. About 440 acres are between the bay and the Nukoli'i resort area. A 24-acre parcel is former cane land along the makai side of Kuhio Highway, south of Wailua Golf Course.

The 440-acre site became the focus of Native Hawaiian land claims last September when a group of Hawaiians chained off the road leading to the property, reasoning that Amfac never had fee-simple title to the land and therefore could not sell it to Moody.

The group claimed that most land in Hawai'i was never legally conveyed to private owners, and remains communally held by the Hawaiian people.

Most of Amfac's former Lihu'e property, 18,600 acres, was bought last July by Steve Case, the Hawai'i-born chairman of AOL Time Warner.

That purchase, combined with Case's acquisition of Grove Farm Co. two years ago, gave the Internet billionaire a firm grip on directing future growth of the region, where Case controls much of the urban-zoned undeveloped land.

Public comment is being accepted on EWM's draft environmental impact statement through May 7. Comments should be addressed to EWM consultant Walton Hong at 3135-A 'Akahi St., Lihu'e, HI 96766, with copies to the Kaua'i County Planning Department, state Office of Environmental Quality Control and master-plan consultant Group 70 International.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.