FIABCI Asia Pacific Real Estate Conference

What a blast this weekend was! Waikiki is a fascinating place, it carries a big city feel while occupying a little subsection of Honolulu. From Thursday, September 10 to Saturday, September 12, I flew over to Oahu for the FIABCI Asia Pacific Real Estate Conference hosted at the magical Hilton Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Resort. It’s fitting our conference took place on Oahu because of its renowned reputation as “The Gathering Place.” People from across the world were in attendance from places like: Nigeria, India, Malaysia, San Diego, Seattle, China, Taiwan, the Philipines, and Singapore to name a few.  It was a pleasure to catch up with my FIABCI family, last time we all met up we were at a FIABCI Beijing event.

I stayed in the Rainbow Tower and was afforded views of Diamond Head and a picturesque ocean view of varying shades of blue. In all of my visits over to Oahu, I have never seen Diamond Head so green; the lushness is due to Oahu’s receival of record rain numbers in the past few weeks. Diamond Head this past weekend alone received 1.5 inches of rainfall over Friday and Saturday (11 & 12). Across the state in the month of August, Honolulu saw the biggest increase in its monthly average rainfall. The record more than doubled from 3.74 in 2004 to 7.83 in August 2015. 

Thursday I flew in early to make it to the Executive Committee Lunch and the board of directors meeting before we launched our first general meeting of the conference. After we wrapped up housekeeping details for the conference, we had a welcome reception with drinks and it was a nice meet and greet to see who was in attendance. Later that night, we all shuttled over to the Waialae Country Club for the FIABCI-USA Grand Prix Gala Dinner where we celebrated the best real estate developments by US developers and architects. I was happy to be asked to be the master of ceremonies for the night and to hand out the awards of the night sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. We then capped off our night at the Tapa Bar Hilton Waikiki.

Friday and Saturday were a mix of economic projections forecasting where certain real estate markets were heading and others pertained to real estate in some aspect. We had many presentations and I am going to highlight a few that caught my eye.

Nice little photo opp I got with Mr. Mayor 

On Friday, we had an awesome Hawaiian cultural demonstration to kick start the second day of the conference. From the far back corner of the room, a man with a conch shell began to blow into it signaling the beginning of the presentations and the bulk of the conference. Then a kahuna (Hawaiian priest) began an intimate chant asking for a blessing of the conference. Immediately after the chant, Mayor Kirk Caldwell gave a fantastic opening speech, he is a very charismatic and talented speaker. He he touched upon where he draws his inspiration, a few of the things he is working on, his vision for the rail, and gave a small forward-looking statement. It’s awesome to see a local boy push so hard for the changes he feels is right.

Harrison Rue, TOD (Transportation Oriented Development) Administrator City & County of Honolulu gave a great presentation on the vision for the surrounding area of the Honolulu Rail Project. He quickly recapped what they have in mind for the rail, “20-mile rail transit corridor—from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center—is a series of diverse, walkable neighborhoods strung together like flowers of a lei.” The TOD focuses not on the building and operation of the rail, but the “development within easy walking distance of a major transit stop that capitalizes on and supports transit ridership.”

Speculative drawings of Mahana Beach Resort

Group 70 International, Hawaii’s largest locally design firm secured a first place finish for their design of Mahana Beach Resort and Spa in Papeete, Tahiti. They presented on their winning hotel plans, but also got a unique insight to what makes their firm tick. The resort is projected to be a major play among resorts in the Pacific. Its design pays homage to the unique characteristics of French Polynesian culture, while offering guests an unparalleled tropical retreat with sustainable design elements throughout.

HSWAC diagram of how the system works

Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning (HSWAC) is an air conditioning company focusing on using cold deep sea water to cool air conditioning systems. Their systems run a lot more efficiently and don’t nearly use as much electricity as the traditional systems. I’m not too sure on their exact numbers, but their entire deep sea water cooling system can be ran on on fractions of what photovoltaic panels would need. Investors took nearly a $20 million risk on the venture without any assurances the project would even come to fruition; since its inception in the mid 2000s, it’s now many steps closer in coming to market.

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A view from a friends room in Waikiki

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Aloha,