Nu'uanu landlord takes over mortuary
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
The state's largest funeral home operator, Rightstar Hawaii Management, has walked away from one of its 11 Hawai'i mortuary and funeral service operations, leaving the Nuuanu Memorial Park and mortuary business to its longtime landlord.
Rightstar had leased the cemetery and mortuary at 2233 Nu'uanu Ave. since 2001 when it paid $35 million to acquire 12 Hawai'i funeral service operations from a Canadian company in bankruptcy.
Landlord Nuuanu Memorial Park Ltd., headed by Han P. Ching and Alice Hahn, filed a lawsuit in March alleging Rightstar stopped paying rent, general excise taxes and other fees last October. As of April 6, $275,000 was owed, and another $57,000 was due May 1, the suit said.
Rightstar said the Nu'uanu operation was an economic drain because of onerous rent, so the lease was forfeited after two years of attempts to renegotiate terms.
"We made a difficult but necessary decision," said Rightstar President John Dooley. "Just as the owner of Nuuanu (Memorial) made a business decision to not renegotiate the lease, we have had to make a business decision to leave the location."
Rightstar assumed the lease three years ago as part of its purchase of the group of funeral service businesses from Loewen Group Inc.
According to the landlord's lawsuit, lease rent at Nuuanu Memorial was $656,000 a year plus 12 percent of gross revenues and other expenses. The annual base rent was set to rise to $820,000 in 2007 and to $1 million in 2012.
The landowner, which founded Nuuanu Memorial Park in 1949 and ran the facility until leasing it out in 1972, took over operations April 30 following a court order.
"Since the company's start in 1949, we have helped countless numbers of families at the memorial park," Hahn said in a statement. "We look forward to being able to provide families with both mortuary and cemetery services."
A spokeswoman for the landowner said the facility will receive repairs that were neglected by Rightstar, and operate as Nuuanu Memorial Park & Mortuary. Derwin Tsutsui, Rightstar's former assistant director of operations at Nuuanu Memorial, has been retained as operations director.
Rightstar, through a spokesman, said that its other businesses are financially stable and will continue normal operations, and that the company plans to open a funeral home near the downtown Honolulu area in the next few months.
On O'ahu, Rightstar operates Valley of the Temples, Diamond Head Mortuary, Ordenstein's Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary, 50th State Funeral Plan and Williams Funeral Services; on Maui, Nakamura Mortuary, Maui Memorial Park and Maui Funeral Plan; on the Big Island, Homelani Memorial Park and Kona Memorial Park.
Rightstar owns its remaining cemeteries as fee simple property, and leases most of the funeral homes.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
