Holualoa Joins ASU Foundation and Plaza Cos. at Skysong

Vizzda—August 28^th, 2013 — An entity formed by Holualoa Companies, The Plaza Cos. and Arizona State University Foundation have signed a new 75-year ground sub-lease for SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center. Holualoa and Plaza displaced the original developer of the site, USAA Real Estate, which retains interest in the multifamily development onsite. As this was not a fee simple conveyance, no affidavit of value is required and therefore no sale price is available.

The acquiring entity secured $17.839m in new construction financing with Alliance Bank of Arizona to begin construction on SkySong III—a 145,000 ft² 4-story research facility in the southwest quadrant of the project. Plaza Cos., which is the master developer of SkySong I and II, will continue in that capacity with assistance from Holualoa; the master developers have enlisted DPR as the general contractor and Butler Design as the architect. Groundbreaking is slated for Late September.

SkySong was developed under a Government Property Lease Excise Tax arrangement with the City of Scottsdale, who is the master lessor of the property. This arrangement calls for the City of Scottsdale to acquire the property from the original developers and lease it back to them at a discount to property tax payable in lieu of collecting said property tax for a period, after which time the property tax liability and the ground lease rent are roughly equivalent. This master ground lease was modified to reflect the new leasehold ownership several days after the close of the sub-lease agreement.

 By:

Paul Dionne

Director of Analytics

Vizzda.com

Holualoa Purchases East Thunderbird Square Out Of Receivership

VIZZDA--August 27th, 2012 -- I. Michael Kasser, president, and Richard B Kauffman, CFO, of Holualoa Companies has purchased the East Thunderbird Square from Gregg Williams, court-appointed receiver for Alan C. Fox of ACF Property Management for $20.55m or $125.52 per SF. The 163,715 SF neighborhood shopping center located at the Northwest corner of Scottsdale and Thunderbird Roads was developed by the Raskin family in 1987 and consists of twelve buildings on 14.04 acres. 

Alan C. Fox acquired the property through merger with the Raskin family on December 19th, 2005 with no purchase price listed and the assumption of $33.4m debt with Merrill Lynch. The $33.4m debt was securitized and assigned to Lasalle Bank on January 2nd, 2009 and further assigned to US Bank on March 16th, 2009. US Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings on June 29th, 2011 by issuing a notice of trustee sale on the property. The property was subsequently placed into receivership with Gregg Williams of Trident Pacific Real Estate named as receiver.

The $20.55m purchase price represents a 62.5% discount to the face value of the outstanding debt. CBRE was retained as the exclusive adviser for the receivership sale.

By:

Paul Dionne

Director of Analytics

pdionne@vizzda.com