While the multi-million-dollar question still remains “What does Steve Case plan to do with his 40,000-acre slice of Kauai?” the near-term answer appears to be continue leasing significant parts of it for agriculture. To date, there are 118 tenants large
While the multi-million-dollar question still remains “What does Steve Case plan to do with his 40,000-acre slice of Kauai?” the near-term answer appears to be continue leasing significant parts of it for agriculture.
To date, there are 118 tenants large and small occupying 12,500 acres of Grove Farm land. The combined Grove Farm lands comprise roughly the bottom right one-fourth of the island.
Among the tenants are multinational corporations like Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., Syngenta Seeds and Monsanto, growing various genetically modified and experimental crops, as well as smaller farmers growing vegetables, coffee, papaya, taro, flowers, fruit trees, and corn for consumption and seed, said Allan A. Smith, Grove Farm vice president and chief operating officer.
Pioneer representatives have leased parcels of both former Lihue Plantation sugar land near Lihue Case acquired from Amfac in mid-2001, and Grove Farm lands further south Case bought for $26 million near the end of 2000.
While technically the former LP lands are known as Lihue Land Company, the officers of that newer entity are the same officers as Grove Farm, and the combined company continues to do business as Grove Farm.
While corn production occupies significant portions of Grove Farm land, by far the most acreage has been leased or licensed to those raising cattle, Smith said.
There are thousands of acres in pastoral use, most of it by cattle ranchers, he said. While some people have leases and licenses encompassing several-thousand acres, there are also many with leases of under 100 acres, he said.
The farmers and ranchers large and small are doing well enough to keep their lease and license payments current, and keep machinery in operation, he said.
“Some of them fall out because they can’t make it, and they give up. Most of our tenants are on the successful side,” he said. “They are doing well enough to keep their rent current, and keep their machinery and animals. Most of them are successful.
“Not highly successful, but making ends meet.”
Tenants occupy over 31 percent of all of Grove Farm’s lands.
Back to the multi-million-dollar question, Smith indicates that leasing of chunks of Grove Farm large and small will continue.
“It’s always a long-term look,” Smith said of company lands. “No changes in zoning, whether up or down, for those areas. And, wherever the lands are entitled, we plan to carry it through at an appropriate and deliberate pace.”
Currently, there are no plans for the company’s unspoiled Mahaulepu coastline adjoining the Poipu Bay Golf Course and Hyatt Regency Kauai Resort & Spa, though at one time Grove Farm had plans to construct three resort hotels along that coast.
“Nothing yet” in terms of the company’s plans for Mahaulepu, Smith said.
Local Sierra Club members and other concerned Southshore residents continue to campaign to keep the pristine coastline wild in perpetuity, a plan that seemed to have a sympathetic ear from former Gov. Ben Cayetano. Current Gov. Linda Lingle has not yet weighed in on Mahaulepu.
For now, commercial and residential development on Grove Farm lands continues to be concentrated in Lihue and Puhi.
Renovations of Kukui Grove Center continue, the final eight holes of Puakea Golf Course are expected done in a few weeks, and the under-construction Home Depot store in Kukui Grove Village west has triggered renewed interest in adjacent commercial lots there.
An adult assisted-living facility is under construction near Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Puhi, and residential subdivisions are planned on Grove Farm lands makai of Kaumualii Highway between Kukui Grove Village West and Puhi Road.
When Amfac still owned the LP lands, an Amfac representative offered to take a reporter up in a helicopter to see all of the abandoned vehicles on those lands. Since Case acquired both Grove Farm and LP, a concerted effort has effectively ended the junk-car problems of the past, Smith said.
“One goes in, we yank em out.”
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
