Warehouse offers waterfront vista
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i Kai already has a Costco, a Ross discount store and a park-and-ride bus depot fronting the community's marina waterway, so it isn't too shocking that one of the few vacant waterfront sites in the East Honolulu neighborhood is slated to become a public storage warehouse.
Photos by Andrew Shimabuku The Honolulu Advertiser
Stor-Secure Self-Storage @ Hawaii Kai LLC is developing a four-story facility next to the main channel entry of Kuapa Pond just east of Roy's and Outback Steakhouse restaurants.
A 120,144-square-foot self-storage center will be built behind City Mill at the Hawai'i Kai Towne Centre along Kalaniana'ole Highway.
The 120,144-square-foot project, which recently began preparations for construction, is part of an ongoing boom of self-storage development on O'ahu, where a half dozen or so major facilities are under design or construction.
Nancy Hsu, a nearly 10-year resident along the Hawai'i Kai marina not far from the Stor-Secure site, said restaurants or offices would have been a more attractive addition to the area, though she doesn't object to the self-storage project.
"It's kind of a waste," she said. "It's not the best use."
Kamehameha Schools owns the property, which is an undeveloped phase of Hawaii Kai Corporate Plaza, a complex of office and restaurant buildings next to Hawai'i Kai Towne Center, the Costco-anchored retail center also owned by Kamehameha Schools.
The nonprofit trust is leasing the self-storage site to Stor-Secure, an affiliate of Honolulu-based development firm Pacific Land & Investment LLC.
A Pacific Land executive declined to provide information about the company's project, which according to building permits is estimated to cost more than $7 million.
Local real-estate broker Steve Sofos, who was involved in leasing the site, said the land was envisioned for a third office complex that was never built because of weak demand for East Honolulu office space.
"That pad site has sat vacant for over 15 years," he said. "If there was such a demand, why didn't it get rented out before?"
Sofos, who heads commercial real-estate firm Sofos Realty Corp., said the 56,000-square-foot parcel was too big for a stand-alone restaurant but perfect for self-storage facilities that have been in strong demand. "There is no mini-storage in Hawai'i Kai," he said.
The Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board in November voted to support the Stor-Secure project, which responded to community group suggestions to make the building design more attractive.
"It's not going to look like the typical self-storage looking like a concrete block," said Lester Muraoka, area neighborhood board chairman.
Demand for personal warehouse space in Hawai'i has been strong over the past decade as self-storage developers identified the market as being dramatically under-served with modern storage facilities that often include 24-hour security and access to climate-controlled units.
Calif.-based giant Public Storage Inc. led the early buildup by completing five facilities on O'ahu by 1998. Since then, several other players, including California firms AAAAA Rent-A-Space and Self Storage 1, as well as local developers, joined the real-estate development niche.
The most recent projects include a Mainland development team planning one self-storage facility in Kapolei and one at a former Diner's Drive-In property in Pawa'a.
The site of a new self-storage center to be built behind City Mill at the Hawai'i Kai Towne Centre has been vacant for more than 15 years, according to real-estate broker Steve Sofos.
Pacific Land, in addition to its Hawai'i Kai site, is developing a storage facility in Kapolei. Another firm, Simply Storage Hawaii, plans to convert an Iwilei warehouse into self storage. And on Maui, Finance Holdings Ltd. is proposing a three-story project on a vacant parcel in Lahaina between an elderly housing development and restaurants and shops.
Emerging as one of the larger Hawai'i-based storage developers is MW Group, which started with a $15 million facility in Mapunapuna five years ago, and followed that with a complex in Pearl City scheduled to open later this week.
MW Group plans a third storage project in Kaimuki on the former site of a used-car lot at Wai'alae Avenue and Kapi'olani Boulevard across from a Public Storage facility. A fourth storage complex is planned in Kapolei by MW Group, which intends to develop two more on O'ahu.
"We have long realized that there is a great need for modern storage facilities in Hawai'i due to smaller homes, limited garage space and no attics or basements," said MW Group principal Mike Wood.
Stephen Stadlbauer, a principal with local real-estate appraisal and consulting firm Lesher Chee Stadlbauer Inc., said there is 1.7 square feet of self-storage space per resident on O'ahu — well below the four square feet per person that an industry almanac pegs as supply-and-demand balance.
Stadlbauer said that even with an additional 1.1 square feet of storage space per person in the development pipeline, O'ahu would still be under-supplied, though urban Honolulu and the 'Ewa plain will approach or surpass optimal supply.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
