It's probably the biggest write down since the Japanese investment bubble burst in the early 1990s.

Yesterday, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. reported that its Kapalua Bay Holdings partnership recorded a $208.8 million loss of value on its 146-unit Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences at Kapalua Bay.

The impairment is more than 44 percent of the $474 million construction costs on the project.

Maui Land, whose partner in the project is Marriott Corp., contributed nearly $80 million in equity in the project. All of that, along with Marriott's equity, was wiped out by the impairment.

The ambitious project has seen its share of troubles in recent months.

When lender Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection last year, funding on a $370 construction loan was initially cut off before it was reinstated.

The economic downturn also scared away buyers. According to the company, 19 of the project's 84 residential units have closed escrow although most of the projects luxury timeshares have been sold.

The impairment on the massive markdowns of more than a decade ago when the Japanese investors were exiting their Hawaii properties.

The deals that come to mind are the lavish, 1,200-room Hyatt Regency Waikoloa on the Big Island, which was sold in 1993 for about a quarter of its $360 million construction cost, or the 781-room Grand Wailea Resort & Spa, which sold for 62 percent of its $600 million construction cost.

The deep discounting played a major role in Hawaii's mid-1990s economic recovery.

The cut-rate prices allowed vulture investors like the Wall Street dealmaker Leon Black's Apollo Group and locally based groups like Trinity Investments to buy the properties cheaply, add millions of dollars in renovations and hire new property managers.

We are not there yet. But when the vulture investors start kicking the tires around distressed local properties, it'll be a good sign that the economy is turning.