The project is expected to contain more than 300 units. Most are expected to be two- bedroom, two-bathroom units priced from $450,000 to $650,000, Alexander & Baldwin said. Construction is scheduled to begin in late 2005.

Alexander & Baldwin's purchase of the property comes more than a decade after plans by a Japanese developer to build a high-rise condo on the site fell through.

The 46-story tower was proposed by a subsidiary of Japan-based Motoi Kosan, which bought the block in 1989 near the height of the Japanese investment bubble. But in 1992, during construction of the tower's foundation, the speculative real estate bubble popped and the project was stopped.

Motoi Kosan has leased the property to a parking lot operator, but has not been able to repay a mortgage that had ballooned to roughly $80 million as of early last year when the holder of the mortgage, Japan-based trading firm Mitsui Norin Co., filed a lawsuit to foreclose on the property and sell it

The project will be Alexander & Baldwin's third high-rise condominium in Honolulu in the past few years.

The company has sold out its 100-unit Lanikea project, which is under construction in Waikiki. Alexander & Baldwin is also developing the Hokua condominium in Kaka'ako in a joint venture with the MacNaughton and Kobayashi groups. Some 240 of the 247 units at Hokua have been sold under binding contracts.