A prestigious property development may appeal for housing for military families

BY MAUREEN N. MARATITA
Journal Staff

Ho S. Eun, chairman of Core Tech International, is a longtime local contractor and among Core Tech International’s area of expertise is property development.

Speaking in July with Ryan Mummert on the Datapoints podcast in, presented by Pinpoint Guam, he discussed Core Tech Development’s purchase at auction of Younex International’s Oka property, formerly Emerald Ocean View Park, now known as Summer Towers.

According to Journal files, Younex halted construction in 2010. Core Tech Development purchased the concrete shells and the 45,255-square-foot property in 2014 for $17 million and resumed construction in 2015. The prime contractor for the project was Core Tech International, sister company to Core Tech Development.

Younex invested about $100 million on the project, and Core Tech Development estimated at the time it would require an additional $100 million to complete all four towers, according to Journal files. The purchase was partially funded by First Hawaiian Bank.

The first of the Summer Towers buildings came on to the rental market on May 18, 2017, and offered 51 units over 13 floors with two three-bedroom units and two four-bedroom units per floor.

On Nov. 1, 2018, the second tower opened to tenants, according to Journal files, with 11 floors, each consisting of two three-bedroom units and two four-bedroom units. The three-bedroom units are 1,300 square feet and the four-bedroom units are 1,750 square feet.

The units were quickly leased, and were popular with military tenants, according to Journal files.

In total, Summer Towers has four towers of 11, 12, and 13 stories, housing 196 three and four-bedroom units ranging in size from 1,200+ square feet to 1,700+ square feet, all with oceanfront views. Amenities include a swimming pool, basketball courts, tennis courts, barbecue and picnic areas, play areas for children, a fitness center, a community center, underground parking, and secure entry.

Core Tech’s Summer Towers may prove attractive.

Donald Henderson, director of Plans, Policy and Strategy at Joint Region Marianas told the audience during the Guam Post’s Society of Military Engineers Guam Industry Forum on July 29, “On of the things we’re trying to do is get the military to do high rises,” he said, rather than single family units.

This is not a new idea at JRM, according to Journal files.

Rear Adm. Ben¬jamin R. Nicholson, commander of Joint Region Marianas in 2022, told the paper, “There’s actually a very well-defined process for determining how many houses you are supposed to have on the base.”

He said, “It doesn’t equate to 100% of the people have to live on the base,” and includes availability of rental properties and the local economy.

One completed part of that, studied the rental market in Guam for internal billing between service branches. Yet to come was a broader study that would cover personnel, their status, and availability of rentals on island versus military inventory and size of properties on base, he said.

While there is space to build, Nicholson said, “We’re looking at some smarter ways to build as well. … There’s a lot of goodness in building up; you disturb less footprint as you build up. There’s a lot of benefits to doing that; you can get more units with less piping and these sorts of things. Do we have to build a whole bunch of three-bedroom duplexes, or could we build a multi-story or apartment type living that could hold a number of families here?”

While Phase 1 participants for the RFP were selected, nothing has been advised to Phase 2 awardees. Those companies were expecting to hear what would be required of them in June, but they did not.

Eun expects changes to Phase 2, he told Mummert. The total unaccompanied housing requirement is approximately 800 units, and the total family housing requirement is approximately 1,600 units based on the current projected end-states for force flow in the mid-2030s. “Logically I expect there will be a change in terms of the [Unaccompanied Housing] component,” he said. Eun also expects that will be fulfilled by existing hotels, or removed completely, due to enough inventory of barrack units in Marine Corps Camp Blaz.

Core Tech submitted a bid for the RFP, which included the 196 Summer Towers units. “We could turn it into military housing,” he told Mummert.

Still, he said the Summer Towers number will not meet the total requirement, and new construction will be necessary.

As any contractor will tell you, building 50 units is not as attractive from a financial perspective as building hundreds.

Mummert and Ho agreed that large financing is hard to come by. Banks are currently risk adverse and other factors such as bonding and insurance may require them to invest their own funding for construction if they pursue the RFP. mbj