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NEWS

Longs Drugs opening Makaha

store, preps to start on new

Nanakuli shopping center

Apr 20, 2018, 2:42pm HST 
Credit:  Pacific Business News

    CVS is opening its newest Hawaii Longs Drugs store in Makaha this weekend, and construction of the $20 million Longs Drugs-anchored Nanakuli Village Center, which will also have an urgent-care clinic and a dialysis facility as well as other retail and restaurant tenants, is set to start in the next couple of weeks.

    The 18,130-square-foot Longs Drugs store is opening Sunday in the old Cornet building at the Makaha Gateway center at the corner of Farrington Highway and Makaha Valley Road. KZ Cos., which has built or renovated more than a dozen Longs Drugs stores in Hawaii, handled the renovation of the building, which has been vacant since Cornet closed its variety store in 1995.

KZ delivered the renovation of the Longs store ahead of schedule with Allied Builders Systems as the general contractor, Lucky Cole, the owner of Team Real Estate who bought the 3.5 -acre Makaha Gateway property in 2000, told Pacific Business News. Cole said Longs has signed a 40-year lease on the space.

    Cole said work is still being done to renovate the rest of the Makaha Gateway, which includes the 32,000-square-foot Gateway marketplace, a 24,000-square-foot three-story office building and a 24,000-square-foot warehouse. Glenview Construction is the general contractor on that project.

    Cole hired local artist Solomon Enos, who grew up in Makaha, to paint a mural on the point of the building at the corner of Farrington Highway and Makaha Valley Road. Enos also painted petroglyphs on the columns of the buildings.

    Cole also said he is in the process of dividing the property into two two-unit commercial condominiums, with the Longs store and the marketplace forming Makaha Gateway Makai and the three-story building and warehouse forming Makaha Gateway Mauka. Cole also plans to develop a vacant lot behind the warehouse for parking.

    Down the highway in Nanakuli, Kali Watson, president and CEO of the Hawaiian Community Development Board, said Friday that he expects to close on financing for the Longs-anchored project with American Savings Bank and Punawai O Puuhonua by early next week. Punawai O Puuhonua, a community development entity formed in 2010 by American Savings Bank and the Oahu Economic Development Board, has received new markets tax credits for the project.

The shopping center is being developed on a 12-acre parcel of land adjacent to Nanaikapono Elementary School by a collaboration of HCDB, the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Community Association, 3Leaf Holdings and Sofos Realty Corp., which handled the leasing. Deide Construction is the general contractor.

    In addition to a 20,000-square-foot Longs store, the collection of one-story buildings will also include a 15,000-square-foot dialysis clinic by Fresenius Medical, which does business in Hawaii as Liberty Dialysis, a 12,000 square-foot urgent care clinic and pharmacy for Waianae Coast Comprehensive Medical Center, and about 8,000 square feet of inline retail tenants, including Pizza Hut and L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.

    Pad sites will include a Wendy’s restaurant, a Taco Bell restaurant and a Starbucks with a drive-through.

    The Nanakuli CVS-Longs Drugs store will also have a drive-through pharmacy window.

Meanwhile, KZ Cos. is also planning to build another Longs Drugs store, which will anchor a 50,000-square-foot neighborhood center on five acres of land owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands across from the Ka Makana Alii regional mall in Kapolei.

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