James Campbell Company, LLC
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Hawaii Land Management

We successfully disposed of our low-income producing lands. 

In 2003, Hawai’i Land Management (HLM) was tasked with disposing of about 56,000 acres of the Company’s low income producing agricultural and conservation land in the state of Hawai’i. In 2009, this task was substantially completed.

Four transactions were closed in 2009 with a total value of $49.8 million for about 7,250 acres. They included our Palehua lands, the Grace Pacific Quarry, Kunia Village, and the first of four transactions currently under contract with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Kahuku.

Expansion

By the end of 2009, HLM met 98 percent of its acreage goal. We also entered into contracts for the remaining two percent of the land that ­includes the last parts of the USFWS transaction and our final remaining piece of Kunia land. The ­cumulative acres and value are shown on the ­accompanying graphs.

Geographically, the Company’s 56,000 acres were on three islands, including the island of Hawai‘i, Maui, and O‘ahu. Historically, a good portion of these lands played a key role in Hawai’i’s agricultural history, ­particularly on the island of O‘ahu, where sugar and pineapple ­plantations were significant economic forces for nearly 100 years. In their totality, Campbell lands encompassed ­thriving communities and uses, ­including numerous large and small agricultural ­tenants, two plantation villages (Kunia and Kahuku), churches, a hospital, dozens of water systems, a golf course, ranches, aquaculture operations, telecommunication tenants, a quarry, endangered species, miles of dirt roads, pipelines and power lines. In the final analysis, not only did the ­Company exceed expectations in this program with all of its ­attendant financial benefits, but it also accomplished three important benefits for the community.

  • The sale of the agricultural lands in Kunia to large and small end users will create more jobs per acre than either sugar or pineapple, and at the same time preserve open space.
  • The complicated dispositions of the two ­plantation villages to buyers with plans for ­continuous uses of the homes for affordable housing will preserve a lifestyle, prevent dislocations, and provide housing for several hundred people.
  • The Company has worked with the Conservation Fund, the United States Park Service, the Trust for Public Land, the State of Hawai‘i, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and others on ­transactions involving more than 35,000 acres of conservation land. These transactions have ­resulted in the ­permanent preservation and ­management of ­environmentally and culturally important resources. The largest of these is the 26,000-acre Wao Kele O Puna rainforest land on the island of Hawai‘i. On Maui, there is now a 4,000-acre corridor ­connecting Haleakala ­National Park to the ocean in Kaupo. And on O‘ahu, there are over 4,000 ­protected acres of the Honouliuli Preserve, which is home to more than 30 threatened and ­endangered species, including the singing Kahuli tree snail and the O‘ahu elepaio forest bird. Last, and certainly not least, are the final chapters in the establishment of the 1,100-acre James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge as a home to endangered Hawaiian waterfowl and as a habitat for migratory birds, sea turtles, and the endangered Hawaiian Monk seal.