Honolulu development firm buys Kakaako property for its headquarters

Redmont Group has purchased property in Kakaako, the fast-growing Honolulu neighborhood where the commercial real estate developer is headquartered and where the firm plans to focus most of its resources, including designing, building, managing and investing in projects, the company’s executives told PBN. The firm, which has ties to Birmingham, Alabama, and Auburn University, where…


Phillip Hasha of Redmont Group LLC. The Honolulu-based commercial real estate development
Phillip Hasha of Redmont Group LLC. The Honolulu-based commercial real estate development

Redmont Group has purchased property in Kakaako, the fast-growing Honolulu neighborhood where the commercial real estate developer is headquartered and where the firm plans to focus most of its resources, including designing, building, managing and investing in projects, the company’s executives told PBN.

The firm, which has ties to Birmingham, Alabama, and Auburn University, where some of its top executives used to live and go to school, bought the leasehold interest at 814 Ilaniwai St. for $190,000 from Honolulu-based Shopping Services of Hawaii Inc.

The two-story 6,000-square-foot building sits on a 5,000-square-foot parcel of land owned by Honolulu-based 814 Ilaniwai LLC, which lists Kaye Kawahara and Carolyn Shiraki tenancy by entirety as its managing member.

The property has a total assessed value of about $1 million, property records show.

Phillip Hasha, principal and chief operating officer of Redmont Group, told PBN that the three-year-old company, which has 10 employees, will eventually spruce up its new headquarters.

Before moving to Kakaako on April 1, its headquarters was located in Downtown Honolulu at the Harbor Square mixed-use tower.

“Hawaii is our focus but we still will invest elsewhere,” Hasha said, noting that it recently sold an apartment complex in Birmingham, with the proceeds from that sale to go towards investing more in Hawaii. “We are urban developers that are focusing on Kakaako and the airport area.”

One of its current projects is the new Acura dealership property near the airport, which will be an adaptive re-use project to the tune of about $6 million.

“We’re constantly looking for industrial properties to do adaptive re-use projects,” Hasha said. “We’re only scratching the surface.”

The founders of Redmont Group — Hasha, Ryan Takaki and Brad Wardlaw — all attended the Auburn University real estate developers program, where they met.

“It’s a privilege to live in Hawaii and we know how serious it is to develop in Hawaii,” said Thomas Rubel, president of Redmont Construction, a division of Redmont Group. “Everything we do is looking through the lens of how we are changing Hawaii.”

Duane Shimogawa
Pacific Business News