Nearly 100 acres of agricultural land next to the Turtle Bay Resort on O'ahu's North Shore are headed for a sealed-bid sale, four years after a Florida-based investment firm bought the oceanfront property for $2 million with plans to subdivide it for potential residential use.

The property on Marconi Road includes an old home and a commercial building that once housed Hawai'i's first wireless telegraph station, established in 1901 under a contract with a company set up by the Italian inventor of the technology, Guglielmo Marconi.

The sales agent, an affiliate of New York-based real estate investment bank The Carlton Group, is marketing the 98-acre property dub-bed Marconi Point for $14.5 million as part of a sealed-bid sale of bank-owned real estate and loans scheduled for next month.

But the recorded owner of the property, an affiliate of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.-based J. Henderson Co., said the asset isn't distressed or owned by a bank, and it also has the land listed for sale at $18 million.

J. Henderson Co., a vulture real estate investment fund operator led by Jeremiah Henderson, bought the property in 2005 from an affiliate of the Campbell Estate for $2 million, according to property records that also show the city values the land around $2.3 million for tax purposes.

The offering is one of many efforts by investors to exit real estate deals made near the peak of Hawai'i's property market about four years ago.

In some of these efforts, landowners have been able to profit nicely while the market was still warm. Others haven't been so fortunate and have lost property to foreclosure. And some continue to seek attractive offers despite a depressed real estate market.

Steve Sombrero, CEO of local commercial real estate firm NAI/ChaneyBrooks, said large tracts of agriculture-zoned land in Hawai'i are particularly difficult to value because the value is low as farmland, but developers often envision dramatically higher values for the property as a large ranch estate or subdivision.

Beachfront land with residential zoning, by comparison, commands a much higher premium. In Kailua, for example, six beachfront homes on lots ranging from 10,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet sold for $3.5 million to $5.8 million in 2005, according a review of transactions available on the OahuRE.com Web site.

LOCAL OPPOSITION

A big stumbling block to development, especially on O'ahu's North Shore, is community opposition to subdividing farmland for residential use either as an agricultural subdivision that allows residences under a loophole in state law or by rezoning land for residential use. Subdivision also typically requires costly investments in infrastructure such as roads and utilities.

As a result, it's not uncommon to see ag land that's bought for relatively little and then put back on the market at seemingly extraordinary prices, he said.

"Ultimately the market decides" what a property is really worth), Sombrero said.

Douglas Pothul, who heads the local office of national commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap, added that there isn't much demand for agriculture-zoned property marketed as private estates in today's market. "It's pretty ugly," he said of the market.

Henderson's company, through affiliates, was involved in at least three different land acquisitions in Kahuku in recent years.

One involved 165 acres next to the Marconi property that a Henderson affiliate bought from Campbell in 2006 for $5.5 million and resold a year later to a California development firm for $9.9 million. In February, a lender sued the California firm to foreclose on the property, and the case is still pending.

Earlier this year, the property was listed for sale at $15 million. The city values that land at $4.2 million for tax purposes.

The other Henderson purchase involved more than 200 acres nearby that includes the land under Kahuku's municipal golf course, 70 existing rental homes and about 20 acres of beachfront property.

The Henderson affiliate Continental Pacific LLC bought a majority interest in the land from Campbell in 2006 for roughly $11 million, according to property re-cords, and later sold a minority stake of its share to another investor.

Continental Pacific has proposed conveying the golf course land to the community and selling the existing homes to rental occupants for $75,000, on average, if the company is allowed to develop 18 luxury homes on the beachfront parcel. However, that plan has run into significant community opposition despite support from many of the rental tenants.

BIDS DUE DEC. 11

With regard to the Marconi Point property, that some local residents know better as the site of the old RCA station, Henderson's company previously offered the land for sale through a Mililani-based brokerage firm, Mark DeCastro Realty & Associates, with an aim to attract a buyer interested in pursuing a subdivision plan envisioned by Henderson.

Michael Danhour, chief operating officer of J. Henderson Co., said an agricultural subdivision allowing house lots is planned for the property, and that the firm intends to seek county approvals and obtain subdivision permits if the present sale effort isn't successful.

Danhour said his firm hopes to sell the property, which it also refers to as Makai Ranch, but also retained another sales firm called Second Market that arranged the sealed-bid event through Carlton Group.

The Carlton Group listing characterizes the Marconi Point property as "real estate owned," which is generally defined as property that's been repossessed by a lender.

Joseph Korbar, a Carlton Group managing director, clarified that the land hasn't been repossessed by a lender and is not a distressed asset. He said the offering is a "loan sale" by the developer, J. Henderson Co.

Bids are due Dec. 11, and a sale could close by Dec. 28 if the seller accepts an offer, though J. Henderson Co. isn't bound to sell the property to the highest bidder.