Executive Summary

Kula Aupuni Niihau A Kahelelani Aloha (KANAKA) Public Charter School is located on the island of Kauai in Hawaii and serves the native Hawaiian people. The school needed funds to make structural and programmatic improvements to expand its mission in the community. KANAKA worked with TowerPoint to monetize its wireless real estate assets and use the lump-sum payment to fulfill its long-term mission in the community.

• Challenges

• Access to favorable capital: KANAKA saw difficulty with taking out a traditional loan and wanted to avoid burdening Hawaiian landowners with long-term debt.
  
• Lender Cooperation: The school had an existing USDA Rural Development loan, which posed a high barrier to approving the release of the cell tower leases.

• Objectives: In order to mitigate the challenges listed above, the site owner needed to achieve the following:

• Gain access to immediate capital to fund facility and program improvements;
• Navigate the rules and guidelines of the USDA Hawaii Rural Development loan program in order to facilitate the sale;
• Structure a customized purchase solution; and
• Work with a firm that understood and honored its long-term interests.

• Solutions: With a comprehensive understanding of the site owner’s needs, TowerPoint was able to address their objectives by:

• Working with the USDA Hawaii Rural Development loan program to facilitate a successful agreement for signoff on the release of the cell tower leases in order for the telecom transaction to reach final approval;
• Structuring a unique purchase term that would allow the school to reclaim the assets in the future; and
• Setting proper expectations that ensured the transaction was transparent and went smoothly with no surprises to the site owner, allowing the school to clearly communicate a successful result to their community.

Results:

By working with TowerPoint, KANAKA was able to gain access to capital that allowed them make the required structural repairs to the school and to expand the school size without having to take out a traditional loan with unfavorable terms. The nonprofit used the lump-sum payment to meet its goals and continue to focus on its mission to educate more children in the community.