The Honolulu Board of Water Supply shut off water to a derelict downtown office building on Thursday following a request by its owner, Union Mall Development Group LLC — the latest blow to residents of the squalid co-living space inside a former office building.
Since October, the nine-story building — converted by Union Mall Development and its founder, Chad Waters, into unpermitted residences without proper kitchens and bathrooms — has been without air-conditioning, working elevators and electricity.
Residents have complained of violence and theft. In one instance, after a resident won an eviction case allowing her to stay at the property, building staff wrestled her to the ground and hit her on the head while police officers stood by.
Building employee and social media influencer Elijah McShane was arrested for slapping the phone of a woman filming the incident. He was later released.
Despite the violence and squalor at 1136 Union Mall, Waters insists he’s done a good job managing the property.
The exterior of a former Union Plaza office building that has been converted into unpermitted residences. Residents have been living without electricity for months and now their water has been turned off, too. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)
The crux of Waters’ argument, which is laid out in a document filed in state court on Tuesday, is that residents — including legal tenants and illegal squatters — have foiled his best efforts to maintain the property.
One of those tenants, Rex Matsuo, runs a residential hostel on the building’s fourth and ninth floors. He calls Waters’ assertions nonsense.
“I say he’s probably the worst slumlord Hawaiʻi has ever seen,” said Matsuo, who recently prevailed in an eviction case brought by the building’s owner, Union Mall Development Group LLC, which Waters founded. “Is there any other way to say it?”
Developer Faces Foreclosure
Waters’ defense of his record managing the building, which one former tenant has called a “hellhole,” comes as a Hawaiʻi circuit court judge considers a request by the building’s mortgage lender to appoint an independent third party. That entity would manage the property while Union Mall Development Group fights the lender’s attempts to foreclose on the property.
According to court records, the development group bought 1136 Union Mall from Tomoya Tsuruhara in 2024. At the time, the group was owned by Waters and partner Scott Bingo, who paid $6.5 million, including a $1.2 million down payment. The rest of the money was covered by a loan from Tsuruhara secured by the building and guaranteed by Waters and Bingo.
In May, Tsuruhara sued to foreclose on the mortgage, alleging that nearly a year after taking out the loan Waters and Bingo hadn’t made a single payment. Waters and Bingo argued that Tsuruhara failed to disclose an underground encroachment from a neighboring property when he sold them the building.
It is Tsuruhara who asked the judge to appoint the third-party receiver to ensure the property’s value doesn’t further erode while the dispute plays out in court. That request points to many of the things that tenants have complained about and that Civil Beat has documented: failing air conditioning, broken elevators, water leaks and electrical hazards that Union Mall Development Group hasn’t addressed.
“The worsening condition of the Property is a textbook example of the types of waste a receiver is intended to prevent or cease,” Tsuruhara argues.
A hearing on that request is scheduled for Feb. 12
Union Mall Development Group’s shared showers at 1136 Union Mall include this one, where residents wash while standing at a urinal. The water was turned off on Thursday. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)
Waters responded with a motion saying there’s no need to appoint a receiver. Tsuruhara’s assertions about squalid building conditions, Waters argues, are based on contested and unadjudicated allegations and media reports. Waters’ lawyer, James DiPasquale, declined to comment, but Waters’ motion includes a declaration defending his management of the derelict building in the heart of Honolulu’s central business district.
Who Is In Charge?
For months, a central question has been not how well Waters was managing 1136 Union Mall, but whether he was managing it at all. By November, as Union Mall Development Group sought unsuccessfully to evict tenants in court, Waters had stepped down as a manager-member of Union Mall Development Group LLC, according to the company’s business registration, which listed him merely as the entity’s agent.
To the consternation of judges overseeing the eviction proceedings, neither Waters nor anyone else associated with the development group was showing up for court hearings, despite explicit requests by the judges that someone be present.
“My only role is the overseeing the design [sic], permitting, and future construction of the conversion to student housing,” Waters wrote in a text message to Civil Beat on Nov. 10. “The last time I was in the building was about five months ago.”
Yet, in his declaration in the receiver matter, Waters tells the court something different: “I have been personally familiar with the building and site conditions at 1136 Union Mall since at least September 2023, when UMDG submitted its purchase offer for the property.”
Nothing in public records indicates that Waters is now anything but an agent for Union Mall Development Group. Business registrations now list Union Mall Development’s member-managers as a Scott Bingo family trust, an affiliate of Honolulu’s Tradewind Investment and Wyoming-based Union Dorm LLC, which lists no member-managers.
Nonetheless, Waters says in his declaration that he’s a “managing member of Union Mall Development Group LLC.”
DiPasquale did not respond to a request to for documentation that reconciles the two versions.
‘The Owner Is Always Responsible’
Waters’ declaration also indicates he’s been working with the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting to stabilize the building.
Emails between DPP director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Waters’ and one-time Union Mall Development owner Dr. Jasim Alidina show DPP and Union Mall Development in late 2025 were indeed coordinating a city inspection of the property. Apuna told Civil Beat the inspections took place in January and that the department is putting together formal notices of violations.
But Apuna said it’s an overstatement to say that DPP was working with Waters. In fact, she said the city has had difficulty finding Waters to serve numerous violation notices it previously issued. In addition, she said, as of Friday, Union Mall Development Group had requested no permits to do the work necessary to remedy past violations.
While an overarching theme in Waters’ declaration is that the tenants and illegal squatters, not Waters, are responsible the building degradation, Apuna said violations are issued against owners, who are responsible for maintaining their buildings.
“The owner is always responsible,” she said.
Civil Beat’s reporting on economic inequality is supported by the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation as part of its work to build equity for all through the CHANGE Framework; and by the Cooke Foundation.
Sign up for our FREE morning newsletter and face each day more informed.
Sign Up
Sorry. That’s an invalid e-mail.
Thanks! We’ll send you a confirmation e-mail shortly.
