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Chinese developer plans mixed-use condo tower near Honolulu’s Ala Moana Center

March 5, 2016 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

The “Hawaii City Plaza” project at 710 Sheridan St. near Walmart and Sam’s Club stores is expected to have ground floor commercial space, including retail and restaurants, as well as a parking podium that will be the foundation for a condo tower.

James Freeman, principal for Honolulu-based FSC Architects, who is the architect for the project, declined further comment on the development until it engages in the public process. He is scheduled to present plans for the Hawaii City Plaza project at Tuesday’s Ala Moana-Kakaako Neighborhood Board.

The condo is expected to include a mix of affordable and market-rate units.

The Hawaii City Plaza is being developed by Advantage America Hawaii Regional Center LLC as part of the EB-5 immigrant investor program, which has resulted in $8.7 billion worth of foreign investment in U.S. businesses over the past three years and has created more than 35,000 jobs in America, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

To be eligible for visas that can ultimately lead to green cards, foreign investors must invest $1 million in new businesses that create 10 jobs in the U.S. That threshold falls to $500,000 if the investment is made in a rural area or areas with higher-than-average unemployment.

The Hawaii City Plaza project has received approval from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism as a project that fits within the targeted employment area.

It will be located in the Ala Moana Neighborhood Transit-Oriented area, with the goal of trying to get greater density around the transit stations to create walkable and bikeable communities.

The Hawaii City Plaza developer, a group from Mainland China, already has two projects in the Los Angeles area, which are smaller, limited-service hotels. This would be their first project in Hawaii.

The 39,520 square feet — nearly an acre of land — at 710 Sheridan St. is zoned for a retail/condo development.

Duane Shimogawa
Reporter
Pacific Business News

Filed Under: Ala Moana Neighborhood Transit-Oriented, Blog, Featured Blog, General Real Estate, Honolulu, HONOLULU Tagged With: 710 Sheridan St, Ala Moana Neighborhood Transit-Oriented, Hawaii City Plaza

Slaying The Myths About Buying A Home

January 28, 2016 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Interest Rates are still below historic numbers.
  • 88% of property managers raised their rent in the last 12 months!
  • Credit score requirements to be approved for a mortgage continue to fall. The 723 average score is the lowest since Ellie Mae began reporting on scores in August 2011.
  • The average first-time home buyer down payment was 6% in 2015 according to NAR.

Slaying-Myths-STM

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, Hawaii Lenders, Home Buying, Honolulu, HONOLULU Tagged With: FICO, interest rates

More details revealed about $16M renovation of iconic Kaiser Estate in Honolulu

September 15, 2015 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

New details have been revealed regarding the iconic Kaiser Estate in East Honolulu, including that plans include the construction of a new house on the property, according to public documents.

Kurt Mitchell, managing principal in Hawaii for Alaska-based RIM Architects, who is working on the project, gave an update to the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board in July.

He told the board that all residences are being renovated on the estate, and that each needs a special management area use permit, according to the board’s meeting minutes.

Mitchell also noted that the project includes renovation of the boathouse and main house, plus construction of a new house, which is less than 25-feet.

An environmental assessment has been filed with no significant impact found and the project falls within the state Department of Land and Natural Resources requirements for a certified shoreline, he said.

Mitchell told PBN in an email this week that he could not offer further comment on the project.

The Portlock estate, which was once on the market for $80 million, is undergoing a $16 million renovation by its owners Fred and Annie Chan, University of Hawaii graduates who made their fortune in the high-tech industry in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the environmental assessment.

The 5.4 acre estate, which was once owned by Kamehameha Schools and Japanese businessman Genshiro Kawamoto, was built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.

Duane Shimogawa
Reporter
Pacific Business News

Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$2M -_$3M
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Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$4M -_$5M
Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$5M -_$6M
Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$6M -_$8M
Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$8M – 10M
Luxury_Oahu_Honolulu_Condos

Filed Under: Blog, General Real Estate, Honolulu, HONOLULU Tagged With: Celebrity home Honolulu, Celebrity Homes Honolulu, Genshiro Kawamoto, Kaiser Estate, Luxury Estate Honolulu, Luxury Experiences Honolulu, Luxury Home Honolulu, Luxury Homes Honolulu, Luxury Honolulu, Luxury Living Honolulu, Luxury Mansion Honolulu, luxury real estate Honolulu, Luxury Villa Honolulu, LuxuryHomes Honolulu, LuxuryHomes.com Honolulu, Mansion Honolulu, Million Dollar Estates Honolulu, Million Dollar Home Honolulu, Most expensive Honolulu, Ocean View Honolulu, Penthouse Honolulu

Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State

June 9, 2015 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State

The figures highlight the mismatch between dipping job earnings and soaring housing costs

Yes, the American economy is improving, and yes, we’re creating more jobs. But the hourly wages for a lot of these jobs are stagnant at best. According to the Pew Research Center, 30 percent of America’s workforce earns a near-minimum-wage salary—that’s almost 21 million people. As a cruel paradox,rents across the country keep rising.

A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition examines how these opposite trends play out regionally. The work maps how much an American worker needs to earn per hour in each state to rent a two-bedroom apartment. It finds that in no state can a person earning minimum wage afford such an apartment at market rent.

Governor Kate Brown of Oregon sums up the problem in the report’s preface:

In my home state of Oregon, and in communities across the country, working families searching for affordable rental units find little to nothing in their price range. There simply isn’t enough reasonably priced, decently maintained housing to meet the demand, and rapidly rising rents outpace wages. As a result, one out of four households spends more than half their income on housing costs. People with low or fixed incomes face even bleaker situations.

Rents keep rising because the demand for rentals keeps growing, and that’s partly because fewer people can afford to buy their homes today than they could before the recession. The low supply of rentals has created a situation where people who definitely can’t afford to buy are also priced out of renting.

Here’s how the report explains the impact of scarce affordable housing on low-income renters:

The tightening rental market has the most significant impact on low income renters. Many higher and middle income renters occupy units that are affordable to lower income groups, reducing the supply of affordable and available decent apartments for the lowest income renters. As a result, in 2013, for every 100 extremely low income (ELI) renter households, there were just 31 affordable and available units.

The report’s calculations back up its claim. Currently, an average American needs to earn $19.35 to afford rent on a two-bedroom unit. That’s a few dollars more than the $15.16 average hourly wage earned by the average American renters, and 2.5 times the federal minimum wage. It’s also more than the median hourly wage of the the average American worker, which is $17.09.  For 13 states home to cities with skyrocketing rents—including California, Washington, New York, and Virginia—a person would have to earn well above $20 per hour to afford a two-bedroom place.

Here are some states with the largest gaps between actual average hourly wage, and the average hourly wage required to afford rent for a two-bedroom:

Even a single bedroom apartment isn’t cheap—requiring people to earn $15.50 an hour to rent. Three-quarters of extremely low-income renters (those who earn less than 30 percent of the average median income in an area), for example, pay more than half their salaries toward rent, the report says. For minimum wage renters, $15.50 is around double what they’re earning, which makes renting a one-bedroom out of question.

Expanding the nation’s affordable housing stock is one obvious solution. Raising the minimum wage, and fixing exploitative scheduling policies for part-time and full-time workers, are others. The National Low Income Housing Coalition report calculated that counties in Washington and Oregon, where state minimum wage is above $9, were the only ones where a worker earning that much could afford a one-bedroom apartment rent. For people earning a little more than $7 an hour, making rent for a one-bedroom place would take an average of 85 hours per week; for a two-bedroom, they’d have to work 102 hours per week.

Here is a map showing the hours per week a minimum-wage employee would have to work per week in their state to afford a one-bedroom place:

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/mapping-the-hourly-wage-needed-to-rent-a-2-bedroom-apartment-in-every-us-state/394142/?utm_source=atlanticFB

 

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, General Real Estate, HONOLULU Tagged With: 2-Bedroom Apartment

Honolulu named 9th top U.S. destination this summer by Adobe

May 25, 2015 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

Honolulu named 9th top U.S. destination this summer by Adobe

Honolulu named 9th top U.S. destination this summer by Adobe

Honolulu was named the ninth top leisure destination based on bookings and social media mentions, according to a new study by Adobe.

Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) recently published its 2015 Adobe Digital Index Summer Travel Report based on aggregated and anonymous data from Adobe Marketing Cloud. It found that January was the best month to fly to to Honolulu and while hotel room rates were cheapest in September.

The top five domestic leisure destinations this summer are Washington D.C., Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

In a separate report based on the responses of 1,000 U.S. consumer who have travel plans this summer, it found 7 percent year-over-year growth in online travel bookings, with overall spending for summer topping $65 million. It said the average consumer will spend $2,788 on their summer travel with 57 percent of that being online.

It said this would be the first year that purchases on smartphones will surpass purchases on tablets, and says $1 our of every $5 spent on summer travel will come from mobile devices.

Jason Ubay
Pacific Business News

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, Honolulu, HONOLULU, Oahu, real estate in the news Tagged With: Honolulu, Oahu

Honolulu’s imported skyline

April 23, 2015 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

A view of the Kakaako skyline on March 9, 2015

A view of the Kakaako skyline on March 9, 2015

There are at least 10 new high-rise condominiums at some point in their development in the latest building boom in Honolulu, from San Diego-based OliverMcMillan’s Symphony Honolulu to The Howard Hughes Corp.’s luxury towers, Waiea and Anaha. There’s no doubt that the Kakaako skyline will be changed forever by each building’s distinct design.

But as this new skyline is being created, there are some in the architecture industry who say that the local firms are not getting their fair share of the design work, with these rare experiences going to out-of-town firms.

The lack of work also has a financial impact related to it, which could tally into the millions, although no exact numbers were available for these contracts.

The Howard Hughes Corp., which currently has at least five towers in various phases of development in its 60-acre Ward Village master plan in Kakaako, has chosen design architects that are well known internationally, including Canada’s James K.M. Cheng Architects, Chicago-based Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Pennsylvania-based Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and New York’s Richard Meier & Partners Architects.

Cheng, who studied under Meier at Harvard University, is known for his condo work in Vancouver, British Columbia, while Meier is a Pritzker Architecture Prize winner who currently has high-rise residential towers going up everywhere from Taiwan to Tel Aviv.

While most of the design work is done by these internationally known firms, the Hawaii firms do get a piece of the action as the architect of record, which by state law, has to be a firm with a license to practice architecture in the state.

Also, Honolulu’s WCIT Architecture and Benjamin Woo Architects are involved in the design of Ward Village’s luxury high-rises, Waiea and Anaha, respectively.

Rob Iopa, president of WCIT Architecture, told PBN that he favors local firms getting the lead role in designing world-class towers in Hawaii.

Iopa noted that his firm likes to have more of a proactive role in designing than others.

“Sometimes, when you let big names come in, they would do the design,” he said. “We were an integral part of the design process of Waiea.”

The tower is designed in a way to showcase a story of two Hawaiian fishing gods, a father and son from Kauai, who stopped on every island to teach everyone to fish.

“They stopped in Kakaako and found this as their home,” Iopa said. “When the father passed, he gave his son five fishing tools that has been used by Hawaiians to fish. So the tower was designed with this story in mind.”

Having a big role in designing such a highly visible high-rise is a coveted role for many in the local architecture scene, and it’s something WCIT has recently experienced.

Iopa says that often, the developers themselves are not from Hawaii and turn to Mainland-based architecture firms they’ve used in the past and with whom they are comfortable.

“Sometimes for local developers, they may have a particular connectivity with a group that brings a certain look, and maybe they have made relationships with national firms they like to bring here,” he said. “I think there are lots of local firms that are trying to break that mold. I’m certain that there’s the talent here to do residential towers.”

John Ida, a founding partner of Urban Works Inc., told PBN that the local firms should get all or most of the design work. His firm has been located in Kakaako for about three decades, long before the current condo building boom.

“We do have talent here to do those kinds of projects,” he said. “It kind of gives us a bad image [that we aren’t], as if we can’t design great buildings here, but that’s not true. Hopefully it doesn’t put down the design community.”

Matt Gilbertson, president of Honolulu’s MGA Architecture, noted that every time a major project is awarded by a landowner or developer to a non-Hawaii firm it sends a ripple through the local architecture industry.

“Were we even given a chance to propose?” he asked. “A landowner has the right to do what they choose. There are no unions for architects and owners have a right to develop their site for whomever they want.”

Gilbertson pointed out that architecture is a competitive business, and the fact that Hawaii firms are getting left behind for the design work of these highly visible structures shows how the industry has to compete even harder for this type of work.

“Architects in Honolulu have been put in the second seat, unfortunately,” he said. “I’ve lived in multiple cities, and it’s not something Hawaii architects should be hyper-sensitive about. There are people who have chosen to play at the world stage.”

Craig Takahata, vice president and managing director of Honolulu-based WATG, which is trying to get more work in the state after years of putting more of its focus towards other markets, told PBN that he thinks the opportunities will eventually come.

“Interestingly, every developer asks to see your qualifications and work, so if some of the local firms don’t have that experience, they would need to get that experience elsewhere,” he said.

Seeking Talent

The Howard Hughes Corp. utilizes, on all of its high-rise projects, a pairing of a local firm with a Mainland or international firm for a number of reasons.

“We really made an effort to look for some of the most talented designers anywhere in the world, who are doing projects all over the world,” Nick Vanderboom, senior vice president of development for The Howard Hughes Corp.’s Ward Village, told PBN. “They bring a unique perspective and they have the best and brightest people working with them. Teaming local with international, we get the best results. We’re able to have a mixing of ideas and concepts.”

The Texas-based developer’s core buyer, which it says mostly comes from the Islands, really appreciates the uniqueness of an internationally known architect designing their first building in Hawaii, he said. It may even mean more than it might to project’s Mainland or international buyers

“We do that because it appeals to our buyers and creates an interesting skyline environment,” Vanderboom said. “It’s not always the same for every project. For our Ward Village Gateway project, we are very excited about bringing in Richard Meier to Honolulu. He has designed museums all over the world, among other things. For that project, we went through a very unique process. We did a request for qualifications to a lot of different firms and then shortened that list to four, eventually choosing Meier.”

He also noted that it worked and consulted with Paul Goldberger, an architecture critic who also is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine.

“He actually very rarely does work for private clients,” Vanderboom said. “He worked with us in divvying up proposals. That was an important part of the process selecting international firms.”

When selecting local firms, The Howard Hughes Corp. used a similar process as for the selection of the international firms.

Honolulu firms that are part of the architecture teams include WCIT Architecture for the condominium Waiea, Benjamin Woo Architects on Anaha, CDS International on 988 Halekauwila, and Architects Hawaii on the Whole Foods and Gateway projects.

“We are familiar with these firms,” Vanderboom said. “It was a very intensive and long process.”

New Ideas

He contends that it didn’t choose all local architects for its condo projects because the people it is working with are very specialized international firms with unique styles.

“There really is no one else in the world who does it exactly the way they do it, and if you’re looking for something truly unique, we find that by going to the international firms, it brings new ideas to the market,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have talented firms here. We really rely on them tremendously. It’s just looking to bring new and unique ideas and innovations. Ultimately, it will create an interesting skyline that appeals to retailers and potential residents who live in Ward Village.”

MGA Architecture’s Gilbertson says that The Howard Hughes Corp.’s mission certainly hasn’t been to showcase local architects.

“Their audience is a worldwide audience and to attract worldwide attention,” he said. “This is an international sale, not for local folks, the price tag in general.”

Gilbertson says it should be no surprise that The Howard Hughes Corp. has been talking to the top architecture firms in the nation and world, given that market-driven ambition.

“It just happens,” he said. “All small architectural environments like ours have to realize that, when the world market is watching, we have to take a back seat. It happened to me in Minneapolis. It is just part of the lay of the land.”

Choosing a Mind-set

In general, the choosing of a design firm comes down to the mind-set of the development and developer, where design is playing a role in the project, according to Gilbertson, who pointed out that if a design is a signature piece like Ward Village’s Anaha and Waiea, design is the differentiator.

“When it’s at an apartment building or affordable housing level in Honolulu and design isn’t a distinguishing characteristic, that’s when a local architect makes sense for the developer,” he said. “When they need to sell the sizzle on a world stage, they need to pull some considerable names. It doesn’t surprise me given the client, the luxury level [The Howard Hughes Co.] is trying to pursue.”

To Gilbertson, it’s not that Hawaii lacks talent in this area, but if an architect anywhere is great, and their work isn’t seen, getting noticed is tough to come by.

One way local architects can get involved is through the permitting or public outreach stages.

“Then there’s purely being a production architect,” Gilbertson said. “In the Mainland, there are designers and architects, designers design drawings and architects put it together. In Hawaii, architects do the designs in most cases.”

The only type of work his firm doesn’t do is high-rise condo work, mainly because it is a young firm, thus it does not yet have the reputation to do such towers.

“Doesn’t mean that we can’t do it,” Gilbertson said. “We would like to do high-rises. It’s a very interesting building type and design exercise. It’s one of the more sculpturally interesting building types.”

Not all the local architecture firms want to get involved in designing Honolulu’s newest skyline.

Honolulu’s Group 70 International, one of the largest architecture firms in the state, takes itself out of equation by avoiding high-rise condo work for a reason that may not occur to people outside of the industry — the issue of project insurance.

Without it, the firm is subject to possible lawsuits down the road.

“Condos have had a consistent track record of taking the contractor and architect to court,” Charles Kaneshiro, president of Group 70, told PBN. “If there is project insurance, we would be happy to get involved. It is significant enough [of an amount] that most developers won’t [get project insurance].”

He noted that developers or landowners have approached them to get involved in projects, but usually the question of project insurance for high-rises comes up.

“We do low and mid-rise projects without project insurance,” Kaneshiro said. “These are much easier to handle, dealing with fewer owners and it’s a smaller project in general.”

Urban Works also does not go after high-rise condo work.

“Our insurance doesn’t like [Association of Apartment Owners], so we haven’t gone for any high-rises that are condominiums,” Ida said.

Kaneshiro says that there is certainly enough talent in Hawaii to do high-rise condo work, but proving it is hard to do when the opportunity never arises.

But that’s why Group 70 recently hired Ma Ry Kim, a Kailua High School graduate, who was the former Gensler Europe design director.

“She has done high-rises and signature buildings,” Kaneshiro said. “Can people local do it? How many have had that opportunity to live in the places she’s lived and then come back to Hawaii? That’s a rarity.”

He said that one good thing about having internationally acclaimed architects in town designing buildings is that it raises the profile of architecture in the state, providing other design points of view on what a Hawaii building could be, or should be, something people can then debate.

“It gives us some variety here that we didn’t necessarily have in the past,” Kaneshiro said. “It gives developers a marketing strategy. There’s a lot of work out there for local firms to pursue as well.”

The American Institute of Architects, Honolulu Chapter, told PBN it does not have a position on the issue of high-rise condo work mostly going to firms not from Hawaii.

Locally designed landmarks

While many current high-profile high-rise commissions are being designed by Mainland or international firms, the Honolulu skyline does boast notable high-rises by local architects, including hotels, office buildings and condos, such as:


Locally designed landmarks

While many current high-profile high-rise commissions are being designed by Mainland or international firms, the Honolulu skyline does boast notable high-rises by local architects, including hotels, office buildings and condos, such as:

Hyatt Regency Waikiki
1976
Wimberly Whisenand Allison Tong & Goo (now WATG)

Admiral Thomas
1980
Warner Boone

Grosvenor Center
1981
(now Pacific Guardian Center, home of PBN)
Architects Hawaii

Honolulu Tower
1982
Norman Lacayo

Honolulu Park Place
1989
Norman Lacayo

One Waterfront Towers
1990
Warner Boone

Harbor Court
1993
Norman Lacayo

Moana Pacific
2007
Architects Hawaii

909 Kapiolani
2007
Media 5 Architecture

Capitol Place
2008
Benjamin Woo Architects

Hokua
2006
Benjamin Woo Architects

Sources: “Architecture in Hawaii, A Chronological Survey” by Rob Sandler and Julie Mehta; firm websites.

Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, Honolulu, HONOLULU Tagged With: American Institute of Architects, Architects Hawaii, Harvard University, Howard Hughes Corp, Pacific Guardian Center, Talent The Howard Hughes, The Howard Hughes, Urban Works, Waterfront Towers 1990 Warner Boone Harbor Court 1993 Norman Lacayo Moana Pacific 2007 Architects Hawaii, Whole Foods

CEO says Honolulu Seawater A/C project to start construction in August 2015

October 2, 2014 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

Eric Masutomi, president and CEO of Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning, speaks to the audience about the project at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Resilience Innovation Summit and Expo on Wednesday in Honolulu.

Eric Masutomi, president and CEO of Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning, speaks to the audience about the project at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Resilience Innovation Summit and Expo on Wednesday in Honolulu.

The long-planned $250 million Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning project, which will cool Downtown Honolulu office buildings and condominium towers with cold water from the ocean, is slated to start construction by Aug. 1, 2015, and be operational by the first quarter of 2017, the head of the company said Wednesday.

Eric Masutomi, president and CEO of Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning — who also was a panelist at the Asia-Pacific Resilience Innovation Summit and Expo in Honolulu that covered the topic of seawater air conditioning — said that all of the project’s permits have been filed and the majority of them have been approved.

However, some still question if the project is ever going to happen, and Masutomi noted that this question is one he is asked frequently.

“It has taken us a while to get to this stage,” he said. “One person compared us to a purple unicorn, [saying] it will never happen. I’m here to tell you that it will happen.”

The dilemma for Honolulu Seawater A/C is getting customers signed up.

“The rumors of the project not happening hasn’t helped our cause, but we are engaging a strong marketing plan, offering pretty attractive incentives to motivate building [owners] downtown to sign up now rather than waiting until later,” Masutomi said. “Once capacity is reached, that’s it. It’s improbable that it can be expanded. If you wait, you will be looking at higher rates and if nothing else, it’s questionable about the availability of supply.”

The Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning project, which has signed up such customers as the Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Hawaiian Electric Co., Finance Factors Ltd., First Hawaiian Center, One Waterfront Towers and Remington College, has capacity for about half the buildings in Downtown Honolulu.

The system will provide air conditioning to buildings in Downtown Honolulu by pumping deep ocean water through a pipeline more than four miles offshore to a cooling station in Kakaako.

The projects reducing electricity usage is the equivalent of a 30-megawatt wind farm or a 42-megawatt solar energy farm.

Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News

Filed Under: Featured Blog, Honolulu, HONOLULU Tagged With: Honolulu real estate in the news

Honolulu Realtors wish for low interest rates and higher inventory

January 14, 2014 By idx guys Leave a Comment

Jan 14, 2014, 2:47pm HST
Bill Cresenzo Reporter – Pacific Business News

Julie Meier, the president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, said she doesn’t like making predictions about how the real estate market will fare on Oahu in 2014.

Last week, the board announced that the median price for a single family home hit $685,000 in December. The last time the island saw prices that high was in June 2007. That figure is also $85,000, or about 14 percent, higher than the median price of a single-family home just a year ago.

Interest rates are now ranging from around 2.25 percent to 4.5 percent, which is a good thing.

But inventory on Oahu remains low, which is not a good thing. Right now, there is around 2.7 months’ worth of inventory of single-family homes and around 2.6 months’ worth of condo inventory, Meier said.
“It’s a good time to bring your house on the market,” Meier said.

There were 283 single family homes sold during the month of December, compared to 291 in 2012, a 2.7 percent decrease. The median price of a condo on Oahu was $330,000, a 1.5 percent decrease from 2012, when a condo sold for 330,000. There were 390 condos sold in December 2013, a 2.7-percent decrease from the 401 units sold in 2012.

Meier said homes in the $1.1 million to $1.9 million range are moving the fastest into escrow and the lack of inventory is felt most in the $475,000 and lower range.

“What we are really hoping for is new construction,” she said. “We are really watching for that.”

The board plans to release the full-year numbers for Honolulu later this month.

Filed Under: Featured Blog, HONOLULU, Honolulu Board of Realtors, Honolulu Board of Realtors Market Reports Tagged With: Honolulu Board of Realtors

How Tall Can a Honolulu Building Be? It Depends…

January 9, 2014 By idx guys Leave a Comment

Some people are nervously watching the skies, not for UFOs, but for very tall buildings. Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s announcement of a 650-foot high-rise for Kakaako last May, combined with plans for 20 high-rise condos to be built in Kakaako in coming years, has reignited concerns about building height limits. Even architects think the rules are unclear and some of them, as well as residents and legislators, worry that height limits aren’t consistently enforced.

Kakaako became HCDA’s first Community Development District when the Authority was formed, in 1976. ILLUSTRATION: GARY SAITO

Kakaako became HCDA’s first Community Development District when the Authority was formed, in 1976.
ILLUSTRATION: GARY SAITO

First off, while it’s commonly believed that the height limit is 400 feet, the reality is that there are as many as 10 to 15 height limits on Oahu, depending on the zoning for a given area, ranging from 25 feet in residential neighborhoods to 400 feet or more. But, explains architect Scott R. Wilson, chair of American Institute of Architects (AIA) Honolulu’s Regional and Urban Design Committee, zoning changes in a neighborhood can change height limits, and there are seven Special Design Districts on Oahu, each with its own height limits, resulting in a patchwork of plans.

One such district, Waikiki, even has a graduated set of limits, from 220 feet at the Diamond Head end to 350 feet at the Ala Moana end. The 350-foot limit is consistent with downtown Honolulu’s limit, though there are exceptions there, too, such as First Hawaiian Center, the Islands’ tallest building at 429 feet.

Why do height limits top out at about 350 to 400 feet? “City planners wanted to ensure that Diamond Head was not hidden or overwhelmed by buildings,” explains Wilson. “So they chose a height limit that was just under half its (roughly) 800-foot height.”

The City and County of Honolulu sets height limits everywhere on Oahu except in fast-growing Kakaako, where the state’s Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA) has the final say on zoning and height limits. The HCDA has an ambitious, pedestrian- and transit-friendly urban plan with height and setback limits, but residents are concerned the HCDA is too willing to grant developers variances to exceed those limits.

“Our residents support redevelopment and modernization, but they don’t want a concrete jungle, like Makiki or Waikiki,” says Rep. Scott Saiki. He worries about variances, 650-foot towers and what he feels is unresponsiveness to the Legislature on the part of HCDA. “With the public scrutiny [about height and density issues] and growing concern at the Legislature about the autonomy of the HCDA, we will take a hard look at the statutory framework of the HCDA in the January session.”

HCDA executive director Anthony Ching says the rules in Kakaako are straightforward: an overall height limit of 400 feet (plus another 18 feet for machinery). Any developer who wants to exceed that has to meet three criteria—at least 75 percent of the units must be priced as affordable workforce housing, the building must receive no government subsidies and the maximum unit size must be 1,100 square feet for a three-bedroom—before he or she can ask for a height variance.

Even then, “it doesn’t mean they’ll automatically get the variance,” says Ching. As for the three possible 650-foot towers, he says rules will be set by this summer, after the environmental impact statement is reviewed. “To build to that height, the project must offer an exemplary public benefit,” says Ching, “and the rules will include public input on the project.”

(Disclosure: Napier served as a volunteer public member of the AIA Honolulu board during his production of this piece, but it does not reflect any board stance on building heights.)

http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/January-2014/How-Tall-Can-a-Honolulu-Building-Be-It-Depends/

Filed Under: Featured Blog, HONOLULU, WAIKIKI Tagged With: Hawaii Community Development Authority

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