Hawai‘i’s e-City Gaining Ground

June 26, 2003

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HONOLULU—Over the span of just 12 years, the City of Kapolei has burgeoned from the red soil of West Oahu to become the fastest growing area in Hawai‘i with over 70,000 residents.

JAIMS’ fall 2003 Intercultural Management Program (ICMP) students visited Kapolei as part of their Issues for Global Managers course. They met with Gordon Bruce and Howard Schwiebert who work for the developer of Kapolei: the Estate of James Campbell.

Bruce, director of administration and information services, described the history of Campbell Estate and the unique properties of the institution. Its most unique trait is that, unlike many companies, Campbell Estate has the benefit of knowing the exact date it will cease to exist. On January 20, 2007, Campbell Estate will terminate according the will of its founder; but with the foresight of its trustees, it will immediately rise again in corporate form.

Kapolei will continue business as usual after 2007, which means continued growth and expansion thanks to the vision of people like Bruce and Schwiebert. As Campbell Estate's telecommunications development manager, Schwiebert explained why Kapolei is billed as “Hawai‘i’s e-City.” The Kapolei Teleport, with its array of satellite dishes and fiber optic cabling, is a hub of the Internet between Asia and the United States. Hawai‘i is in the perfect spot for telecommunications satellites to overlap coverage between the East and West. The teleport, itself, won the World Teleport Association’s 2002 Teleport Developer of the Year award, the first ever given to a U.S. teleport.

ICMP students were also shown Kapolei’s master plan and were able to ask both Bruce and Schwiebert about the challenges of building a city. It was at a scale model of the future City of Kapolei where students could see the enormous scope of the project. With several home developments still to be built and with attractive incentives for businesses in place, Kapolei is well on its way to its projected population of 100,000 in ten years.

Campbell Estate is a private trust with office, retail, and industrial properties in Hawaii and 15 mainland states. The Estate's largest project to date is the development of the City of Kapolei, Hawaii's e-City. In 1998, Campbell Estate earned national recognition for its efforts by being named "National Developer of the Year" by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP).