Update on the Ala Moana Center's Renovation

General Growth Properties, the owner of Ala Moana Center, is spending a total of $572.4 million to completely redevelop the Ewa (West) end of the state's largest shopping mall. General Growth had previously announced that Bloomingdale's would be one of the main anchor tenants of this redevelopment.  A second anchor tenant will be disclosed shortly, once a deal has been made.  Vice president of development for General Growth, David Cuthill stated, “Ala Moana has experienced a number of significant expansions since it first came into existence during statehood in 1959.  Ala Moana has consistently shown it can absorb expansion projects. Right now the economy is tracking well, and we are confident that this will be a great success.”

The massive project is expected to add about 300,000 sq ft of retail space to the Ala Moana Center as well as 1,000 new parking stalls.  Experts believe that the construction alone would create an additional 1,000 jobs.  Ala Moana Center's senior marketing manager, Scott Creel, stated, "Everything we’re doing is going to be brand new from the ground up. There’s going to be a variety of stores, new brands that aren’t currently in Hawaii.  We’ve got a list of tenants that would like to be here today, and we cannot accommodate them because we physically don’t have the space.”  Creel added that when all of the construction has been completed, Ala Moana Center will expand to have approximately 2.4 million sq ft of retail space.  The mall currently attracts 42 million shoppers each year.

Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 8-7-2013, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
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