The sale of the former Meadow Gold Dairies manufacturing plant in Honolulu closed Tuesday for $24.1 million to affiliates of Connecticut real investor Twenty Lake Holdings, which may redevelop its first Hawaii investment into a mixed-use complex with nearly 700 residential units and commercial space.
The three non-contiguous properties at 824 Sheridan St., 1302 Elm St. and 925 Cedar St. sold to entities bearing those addresses in the names which were registered by Heritage Holdings RE and Tav Equities LLC; all three had the same Stamford, Connecticut mailing address as Twenty Lake Holdings on its website.
The seller, Dallas-based Dean Foods Co. (NYSE: DF), was represented by Joseph Haas, Andrew Starn and Anthony Provenzano of Cushman & Wakefield ChaneyBrooks. The buyer, a subsidiary of New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital, represented itself. The asking price for the property, which was listed in June, was originally $25 million.
The three parcels are located in the City and County of Honolulu’s Ala Moana transit-oriented development district and zoned BMX-3, or business mixed use. The Sheridan parcel is 38,060 square feet, the Elm Street parcel is 41,307 square feet and the Cedar Street parcel is 14,444 square feet.
A Jan. 20 sewer connection application for the three parcels was approved with plans for a mixed-use project with 678 residential units — 229 studios, 239 one-bedroom units, 178 two-bedroom units and 32 three-bedroom units, as well as 2,620 square feet of retail and a 3,930-square-foot restaurant. No other building permit applications for the properties had been filed as of Tuesday.
Dean Foods, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2019, closed the Meadow Gold facility, which is located on two acres near Ala Moana Center, in April and later auctioned off the remaining equipment through Oahu Auctions. It also sold the Hilo Meadow Gold operations to Hawaii investor Bahman Sadeghi for $7 million in April.
Last week Dean Foods, once the top milk producer in the U.S., received court approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas to liquidate, according to a March 17 report by Bloomberg Law. The sale of the Honolulu property was also approved by the bankruptcy court.
Twenty Lake Holdings’ parent, Alden Global Capital, has backed the purchase of more than 100 newspapers across the United States and instituted cost-cutting that has resulted in the loss of more than 1,000 jobs, according to a 2019 report by The Washington Post.
PBN reached out to Twenty Lake Holdings.
