Hawaii’s connection to Las Vegas runs deep — and it’s worth $1.8B in real estate

When Las Vegas commercial real estate broker Jason Otter vacationed in Hawaii in 2008, he was looking for a good place to eat.

His family found Zippy’s, a casual Hawaiian restaurant chain, and quickly fell in love with it. Founded in Honolulu in 1996, Zippy’s has since become a staple of Hawaiian food culture. Otter said he immediately saw its potential in Las Vegas.

“I was like, ‘Wow, this is a really cool type of offering that we don’t have in Las Vegas,’” he said. “And so I proactively got introduced to the ownership of the brand in 2015 and they were already fans of Las Vegas and had been visiting Las Vegas for some time.”

Eight years later, in 2023, Otter and his team helped bring Zippy’s to Las Vegas, where its first location opened to a frenzy of excitement. The chain now has three locations in the valley, with a fourth on the way.

Otter described the opening of Zippy’s Arroyo Crossing location as “nuts,” with long lines and police directing traffic.

Where does the ‘Ninth Island’ nickname come from?

Hawaii-linked entities now own over 5,341 parcels in Clark County, totaling over $1.8 billion in real estate sales spread across 792 acres, according to a new report from commercial real estate brokerage Colliers. The vast majority of the parcels are residential, totaling 5,035 properties — including 579 condominiums and 4,401 single-family homes — valued at approximately $1.6 billion.

According to the report, as many as 50,000 people of Hawaiian descent could live in Clark County.

The most popular part of town for Hawaii-linked residential parcels are Summerlin and Summerlin West (with higher-value single-family residences and newer condominium units), northwest Las Vegas (with a heavy single-family residential inventory), west Las Vegas (with clusters of condominium ownership) and North Las Vegas (with a high volume on a lower price basis), according to the Colliers report.

On the commercial side, the biggest chunks of ownership lie in office space, ($57.9 million), warehouses ($36.7 million) and shopping centers ($10.9 million), according to the Colliers report. Hawaii-linked entities also own approximately 261 parcels of vacant land worth $112.6 million spread over more than 700 acres.

But the question remains, how did this connection start in the first place?

According to the Colliers report, in 1975, Boyd Gaming opened the California hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas. The company, looking to reach new market segments, implemented targeted marketing which included direct charter flights from Hawaii, Hawaiian-themed dining and hiring practices that drew island residents.

Boyd did not respond to a request for comment from the Las Vegas Review-Journal for this article.

David G. Schwartz, a professor and gaming historian at UNLV said Boyd Gaming founder Sam Boyd had built up personal connections in Hawaii when he worked there early in his career.

“And when he needed to fill the California Hotel with guests, he had an inkling that Hawaii was an underserved market for gambling,” added Schwartz. “It was a sound strategy, but one that required a great deal of expertise and care to execute.”

The Colliers report said the initiative transformed Las Vegas into a preferred mainland destination for Hawaiians, given the absence of legal casinos in Hawaii and thus the nickname “The Ninth Island” was born.

John Stater, a research manager with Colliers and one of the authors of the report, said like many people he’s spoken to about the topic, had no idea the nickname dates back to a 1970s marketing campaign when he first started researching.

“I was kind of surprised by that as well when I started digging into it,” he said. “Because I think it’s something that a lot of us longtime Las Vegans, at a certain point, notice is there’s an awful lot of Hawaiians here. And I think if you grow up here, and I think if you grow up boiling in the desert, the first question you ask is, ‘Why are you leaving an island of paradise?’”

Diving into the Hawaiian-Las Vegas connection

The Colliers report estimates Hawaii residents likely spent at least $159.7 million in Las Vegas last year, a conservative estimate focused on reported non-gaming categories such as lodging, food, shopping and transportation.

Stater said the pipeline of Hawaiians both moving here and buying real estate started with visitation decades ago, however financial incentives quickly came into play as one of the main reasons the connection continued to grow and expand organically.

“One is cost of living, it’s a lot more expensive to live in Hawaii than it is in Las Vegas, and we see that with California, too,” he said. “And the housing prices are a big component of that, you have just like with Californians, it’s easier to afford a home here in Las Vegas. And we’re looking at prices being kind of crazy in Las Vegas here right at the moment but they’re still significantly lower than they are in Hawaii.”

Hawaii also has a very tight labor market, low unemployment but also not a lot of job opportunities, added Stater. He noted on the flipside Las Vegas has a lot of job opportunities within the tourism sector, meaning Hawaiians can take skills working in the tourism industry in Hawaii and bring them to Las Vegas and find jobs here.

Stater said Zippy’s is a great example of a Hawaiian chain capitalizing on this connection in Las Vegas.

Some of the other brands that have set up shop include L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, Hawaiian Bros Island Grill, Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Uncle’s Ice Cream, Na Hoku (jewelers), Hawaii’s Finest Clothing and Aloha Pacific Federal Credit Union.

“The most difficult part about opening a new business is establishing a clientele,” added Stater. “In Las Vegas, Hawaiian retailers and restaurants have built-in customers in the form of a large local Hawaiian population who are familiar with their product. This gives those businesses a head start and time to attract additional customers.”

Otter said it’s been cool to see the connection grow between Hawaii and Las Vegas over the years through real estate and now communities blending together.

“It feels like our city has become family for some Hawaiians,” he said. “That Hawaiian culture, and the relationship that Las Vegas has provided for Hawaiians, it’s been great to see.”

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at [email protected]