A fast-growing Mainland retailer of skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding gear recently entered Hawai'i by acquiring the Waikiki store of kama'aina firm Island Snow.

Zumiez, an Everett, Wash.-based chain with 343 stores in about 30 states, rebranded the store at Royal Hawaiian Center a couple of weeks ago after quietly buying the store in September, and has plans to open additional stores in the state.

The move was part of a semi-retirement plan by Island Snow owner James Kodama, who established the company in 1979, selling shave ice and T-shirts at International Market Place and branched into snowboarding merchandise in the early 1990s.

Kodama, 54, in the past few years entertained dueling thoughts of kicking back in retirement or ratcheting up business with a new store in Kapolei and expanding three existing stores in Waikiki, Ala Moana Center and Kailua.

He said he preferred to retire, but didn't want to close the business and get stuck with inventory, leases and out-of-work employees.

"I didn't know how I was going to land the plane," Kodama said.

Kodama ended up phoning the founder of Zumiez, Thomas Campion, who Kodama had known from industry events, and negotiated a sale of the Waikiki store for what Kodama described as "a really good deal."

According to a quarterly financial report by Zumiez, the price paid for the store was undisclosed, but Kodama received $100,000 not to compete with Zumiez for two years.

Zumiez also considered buying the Ala Moana store, but said the timing on the lease wasn't favorable. So Kodama closed that store at the end of August, though Zumiez hired the employees from the store along with Waikiki store employees.

Kodama is keeping the Kailua Island Snow, which like his original International Market Place store sells shave ice and apparel, and will leave the unlikely business of selling snowboard gear in Hawai'i to the aggressively growing Zumiez.

Zumiez is making some merchandising changes to the Waikiki store, but plans to follow Island Snow's format of selling snowboarding gear for about half the year centered on winter. The Waikiki and Ala Moana Island Snow stores didn't sell shave ice.

Kodama got his start at International Market Place, but for nearly 30 years has been at Royal Hawaiian Center, where he started with a shave ice cart and transitioned to progressively bigger apparel stores that at one time was selling snowboard gear year-round.

Kodama said he became intrigued by the growth of the sport, particularly in Japan, in the early 1990s, and convinced suppliers that he could sell snowboard merchandise in Hawai'i. He said he had some local customers, but primarily his business focused on Japanese tourists who could buy snowboards, boots and other items cheaper in Hawai'i than in Japan.

Sam Shenkus, marketing director at Royal Hawaiian Center, said it was sad to lose a local company that over nearly three decades built its business primarily at Waikiki's largest shopping mall. "He really had mixed feelings about selling," she said of Kodama.

But at the same time, Shenkus said landing Zumiez is good for the mall. "It's always good to get a major national name to the Islands," she said.

Zumiez is a mall-based retailer concentrating on 12- to 24-year-old customers, and is known for producing high-energy special events in addition to selling apparel and other accessories associated with action sports such as skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, motocross and BMX.

Campion founded the company in 1978, and according to an article in Transworld Snowboarding, became the first retailer to sell snowboards in shopping malls and was a pioneer exporting surf culture to regions like the Pacific Northwest.

In 2002, an affiliate of private equity firm Brentwood Associates acquired a 41 percent interest in Zumiez, which at the time had about 100 stores, to help accelerate expansion.

Brentwood also arranged for Zumiez to sell stock to the public, and in 2005 raised about $30 million in an initial stock offering to fund growth of the company, which has been profitable every year of its 29-year history and posted a $6.8 million profit on $112 million in sales for the three months ended Nov. 1.

Zumiez is on target to open about 57 stores this fiscal year ending in February, and envisions a potential for as many as 800 stores.

Trevor Lang, Zumiez chief financial officer, said the company doesn't have a target number of stores to open in Hawai'i. Rather, expansion will be organic as opportunities arise to lease space at attractive rents at desirable malls.

"We think that's a great market," he said.