BUSINESS BRIEFS
Whole Foods store plan grows
Advertiser Staff
Hawai'i's first Whole Foods Market will be a little bigger than originally planned when it opens this year at Kahala Mall.
The natural and organic foods grocery chain has agreed to lease an extra 1,979 square feet next to its initial 26,601-square-foot space at the shopping center. The store is slated to open midyear. Whole Foods stores average 32,000 square feet.
Whole Foods last May announced it planned a Kahala Mall store in space formerly occupied by Star Markets. Yesterday the mall said Whole Foods will also occupy the adjacent retail space of The Patisserie and I Love Country Café.
The Patisserie closed on Monday, and I Love Country Café's lease ends next week, mall management said.
Other tenants displaced last year from the area of the coming Whole Foods were Yen King restaurant and Ginza Kimuraya Tokyo Bakery and Cafe. Those two spaces are being combined for a new restaurant that the mall hopes will sign a lease soon. Central Pacific Bank, another tenant near the Whole Foods spot, will remain.
Whole Foods plans to open four stores in Hawai'i by 2010.
O'AHU GASOLINE MARKUP NARROWS
The gap between O'ahu's average prices for retail regular gasoline and wholesale regular gasoline fell to 24 cents a gallon during the week ended Oct. 28, the state Public Utilities Commission reported yesterday.
That's down from 29 cents the week before.
Lawmakers mandated the disclosure in hopes it will discourage unfair pricing after the suspension of controversial gasoline price caps in May 2006.
The average retail price before taxes fell 2 cents to $2.52 a gallon, while the average wholesale price rose 3 cents to $2.28.
The PUC's average wholesale price figure has been criticized as inaccurate and inflated because it combines different types of wholesale transactions into one price. Under the program, oil companies must file monthly and weekly reports disclosing in some cases crude oil costs, wholesale prices, gross margins and other figures.
MORE PLANE SEATS TO ISLES EXPECTED
Airline capacity on flights to Hawai'i is expected to rise slightly to 2.57 million seats for the first three months of the year, a 0.1 percent increase from the same period last year, according to a report released yesterday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Domestic scheduled service to Hawai'i for the January-to-March period is expected to climb to 1.9 million air seats, a 5 percent increase over the same time the year before. U.S. west seats are expected to rise 5.8 percent during the period, reaching 1.63 million. U.S. east air seats are forecast to fall 0.3 percent to 276,733.
International air seats are forecast to fall 11.6 percent to 660,914. Air seats from Japan are projected to fall 10.2 percent to 414,557.
KUPA RADIO STATION CHANGES HANDS
The ownership of Pearl City-based KUPA AM 1370 has been transferred in a transaction between two Utah companies, according to a report in Radio & Records, a Web site and publication that track the radio and record industries.
Radio & Records reported that Nupetco Associates LLC acquired the stock of Broadcasting Corporation of America, the licensee for KUPA, in return for canceling of certain debt. Salt Lake City-based Nupetco Associates is headed by manager Neuman Petty, according to Radio & Records.
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