One of the future plans for Kakaako is to make the area more pedestrian friendly and add more shops and restaurants.
Hawaii agency to decide on second condo tower at 801 South St.
Dec 3, 2013, 6:54am HST
Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News
The Hawaii Community Development Authority expects to make a decision on Wednesday regarding a Honolulu developer’s plan to build a second residential tower in Kakaako with an accompanying 10-story parking garage on the site of the former Honolulu Advertiser building, the state said Monday.
The state agency that’s overseeing the redevelopment of Kakaako is holding a second public hearing on the permit application by Downtown Capital LLC, which is headed up by Hawaii developer Marshall Hung, on Wednesday at its office at 461 Cooke St., starting at 9 a.m.
The workforce housing condominium, which would include some 400 units, is part of the 801 South St. project, which includes a first phase of 635 units that have sold out.
Together, the two towers are expected to have a total of about just over 1,000 units.
The 801 South St. project is expected to cost $400 million to develop and will create 350 construction jobs.
The second building application will include a partial demolition of the back portion of the existing Honolulu Advertiser building, which was once used as a soundstage for the CBS crime drama “Hawaii Five-0.”
Developer gets $120M loan for Kakaako high rise
By Associated Press
POSTED: 12:27 p.m. HST, Nov 11, 2013
A developer planning a high-rise project near downtown Honolulu says it has secured a $120 million construction loan and plans to start building this month.
Developer gets $120M loan for Kakaako high rise
Developer Oliver McMillan said today it secured the loan for its 3.5-acre Symphony Honolulu project from lenders including First Hawaiian Bank. Three other lenders are also involved.
The project is in Kakaako, east of downtown Honolulu. Plans call for a tall, glass skyscraper with 288 market-priced condominiums and 100 lower-priced units for buyers who meet certain conditions set by the Hawaii Community Development Authority.
Officials say the project will generate about 400 construction jobs for the next two years and about 100 permanent jobs.
The project is expected to be completed in 2015.
Kaka’ako has always been about change
HONOLULU —Kaka’ako is bounded by Ward Avenue, Punchbowl Street, King Street and the waterfront.
Kaka’ako is on the verge of change, but if you look back over the centuries, it has always been about change.
In the mid-1800s, salt production was a big business. It’s a past that surprised many we talked to, like Kaka’ako resident Marcus Peng.
“I know this whole block will be redeveloped, will be called salt. That’s what it is!” said Peng.
A photograph shows Aliiolani Hale, the building that stands behind the King Kamehameha statue on King Street, and how close the ocean is to it.
So what happened to the water?
It began in the mid-1850s with the deepening of Honolulu Harbor. Over the decades, the dredge material and incinerated waste was used to fill in reef tidelands and salt ponds throughout Kaka’ako.
This created dry land allowing the building of Aloha Tower, the historic pumping station and so much of Kaka’ako.
Looking at Kaka’ako and Honolulu of old with its reefs and water with an overlay of today’s buildings show all of the reclaimed land makai of Ala Moana.
With more dry land, Kaka’ako welcomed businesses and a melting pot of island residents.
Former University of Hawaii president Fujio “Fudge” Matsuda was born and raised in Kaka’ako. He was born on the Magoon block that once stood along Queen Street.
The Matsuda family would move to a home across from Mother Waldron Park. His parents ran Matsuda Saimin, selling a bowl of their famous saimin for a dime.
“They moved here and started the saimin stand, the saimin business, and they rebuilt from there,” said Matsuda. “We lived upstairs and the houses were old then. By the time we moved in, you could see through the cracks in the wall and see outside. But, it was home.” Comfortable.”
The house is long gone and so is the unobstructed view of the mountains Matsuda had right outside his front door.
It was a bustling neighborhood with a reputation for being a tough place to live.
“But for those of us who lived there, it was paradise,” said Matsuda. “Because in our enclave here, we all knew each other. We were safe.”
In the 1940s, 5,000 people called Kaka’ako home. Following the war, most moved out and industry moved in.
By 1970, fewer than 850 people lived there.
Mixed in with the warehouses and apartment buildings, there are a few reminders of the past.
The Royal Brewery building still stands, sans the beer. And the old Kewalo Theatre with its beautiful details — state-of-the-art when it opened in 1937. Today, it’s a dive shop.
And now Kaka’ako prepares to change again in a very big way, and will soon welcome a whole new generation to call it home. Peng says he’s glad he’s there.
“I enjoy it quite a bit, actually. It’s a very comfortable place to live,” said Peng. “It’s close to the water. It’s really up-and-coming, is how I feel about it.”
Read more: http://www.kitv.com/news/hawaii/where-you-live/where-you-live-kakaako/-/22719250/22862874/-/wfn34u/-/index.html#ixzz2kJZ2DD33
Proposed Kakaako amusement park receives key state permit
Aug 12, 2013, 2:20pm HST
Duane Shimogawa | Reporter- Pacific Business News
The developer of a $10 million Kakaako amusement park that will feature a go-cart track, miniature golf course, wave pool, indoor skydiving, skate park, rock climbing wall and several carnival amusement rides has received a key special management area permit from the state.
Alii International Services LLC is headed by Hawaii entrepreneur and extreme sports enthusiast Billy Balding, who has done work as a marine film coordinator and business consultant. He is calling the Kakaako Adventure Park “an urban adventure thrill-tainment and edu-tainment attraction in Kakaako.”
The park, which aims to create 30 jobs, is planned on three acres owned by Kamehameha Schools along Ala Moana Boulevard at 222 Ahui St.
In addition to Balding, the project involves James Owen, former president of Discover Hawaii Tours.
Neither Balding nor Owen could be reached for comment.
Anthony Ching, executive director of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which is charged with developing Kakaako among other areas, told PBN that Alii International Services has already received its development permit and is in the process of negotiating a lease with Kamehameha Schools.
Two Kakaako redevelopment projects approved
By Star-Advertiser staff
POSTED: 03:39 p.m. HST, Aug 07, 2013
LAST UPDATED: 06:24 p.m. HST, Aug 07, 2013
Two pieces of a master plan for redeveloping nine blocks in Kakaako owned by Kamehameha Schools got the go-ahead Wednesday.
The Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency governing development in Kakaako, approved two detailed project plans with 6-0 votes by its board after public hearings.
Kamehameha Schools plans to develop a six-level parking garage with 267 stalls amid an envisioned retail complex largely made up of old buildings slated for renovation in Kakaako. Shown here is a conceptual view from the corner of Auahi and Keawe streets of the project dubbed SALT.
One project approved is called The Collection, a complex featuring 467 condo units, including 397 in a 43-story tower, 54 in a four-story building and 16 three-story townhouses. Retail and restaurant space along with a 914-space parking garage are also part of the plan for the block bordering Ala Moana Boulevard and South, Auahi and Keawe streets where CompUSA once operated a store.
Honolulu-based Alexander & Baldwin Inc. is developing the project on land it has arranged to buy from Kamehameha Schools.
The other piece of the Kamehameha Schools master plan approved is a retail complex dubbed SALT.
The SALT project will provide space for 35 to 50 mostly retail and restaurant tenants just Diamondhead of The Collection on the block bordered by Ala Moana Boulevard and Coral, Keawe and Auahi streets.
Kamehameha Schools envisions seven towers on nine blocks under a master plan approved by HCDA in 2009.
Other pieces of the master plan include three luxury condo towers on adjacent blocks fronting Ala Moana and a moderate-priced tower with 600 units two blocks mauka from The Collection.
Detailed plans for those four tower projects have yet to be submitted to HCDA for approval.
www.KakaakoProperties.com
Stanford Carr, Kamehameha Schools team on $300M Kakaako project
Jul 26, 2013, 2:58pm HST Updated: Jul 26, 2013, 3:19pm HST
Duane Shimogawa | Reporter- Pacific Business News
Developer Stanford and Kamehameha Schools on Friday formally announced plans for Keauhou Lane in Kakaako, a project that includes a 40-story tower consisting of 600 residential units as well as a low-rise mixed-use residential project with 200 workforce rental apartments.
Keauhou Lane in Kakaako
The $300 million project, which will be located on the site of a surface parking lot along South Street, adjacent to Carr’s Halekauwila rental project and bounded by Halekauwila and Pohukaina streets as well as South and Keawe streets, includes a variety of housing options such as rental apartments, lofts, townhomes, a high-rise tower and live-work space and retail shops and a neighborhood grocery store.
Carr’s Stanford Carr Development would develop the 600 units in the tower, while Kamehameha Schools would develop the workforce rental apartments.
An estimated 40 percent of the housing units at Keauhou Lane will be reserved for middle-income workers. To qualify for a unit, renters may earn up to 100 percent of Honolulu’s median income and fee-simple buyers may earn up to 140 percent to qualify, Carr and Kamehameha Schools said.
Carr’s portion — 400 for-sale units and 200 rental units — will take up about 93,000 square feet of “Block A” of Kamehameha Schools’ “Our Kakaako” master plan, which includes 29 acres on nine city blocks, seven residential towers that include 2,750 units and 300,000 square feet of commercial space.
It also will include a parking structure for residents of Keauhou Lane to use.
Kamehameha Schools’ portion includes 69,387 square feet of property with live-work units, rental apartments and ground floor commercial space.
Combined, the projects will have about 50,000 square feet of recreational spaces, as well as more than 65,000 square feet of open spaces.
Alakea Design Group is the project’s architect and a contractor has yet to be chosen, Carr said.
Keauhou Lane, which is named after a historical private lane that once ran through the property, is the fourth project announced by Kamehameha Schools as part of its Kakaako master plan.
These projects include the Six Eighty Ala Moana rental development, A&B Properties’ “The Collection” and the Salt at Our Kakaako retail complex.
Groundbreaking and construction for the Keauhou Lane project, which may be connected to a Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation rail transit station, are targeted to start in mid to late 2014 with an expected completion date of 2016.
Next up for the development is submitting a development permit application with the state, which should happen in the next 30 days, Carr said.
Stanford Carr’s Kakaako condo project would add 600 residential units, commercial space
Jul 23, 2013, 7:01am HST
Duane Shimogawa | Reporter- Pacific Business News
Stanford Carr Development is planning to build a mixed-use high-rise residential project in Kakaako that would include 600 residential units, including townhomes, live-work units, rental apartments and ground floor commercial space.
It will be located in an empty parking lot along South Street, adjacent to Carr’s Halekauwila rental development and bounded by Halekauwila and Pohukaina streets as well as South and Keawe streets.
This map shows the location of Stanford Carr Development’s planned 600-unit mixed-use project in Kakaako.
The project involves landowner Kamehameha Schools and the Hawaii Community Development Authority, the state agency charged with overseeing development in areas such as Kakaako.
A Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation rail transit station is located right near this planned development but Carr declined comment on the prospects of it being a part of the new residential project.
“We’re trying to integrate everything,” Carr told PBN. “We challenged ourselves to go before agencies and say, ‘let’s collaborate.’”
PBN first reported this planned development, which will most likely include a neighborhood grocery store as one of its ground-floor commercial components.
Carr told PBN that the project is expected to include a total of 600 units, with 400 units for sale and 200 rental units.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie, Paul Kay, director of real estate development for Kamehameha Schools, and Carr are expected to make an official announcement regarding the project on Friday.
The development is part of Kamehameha Schools’ “Our Kakaako” master plan, which includes 29 acres on nine city blocks, seven residential towers that include 2,750 units and 300,000 square feet of commercial space.
Search properties for sale at KakaakoProperties.com
Three condo towers, 900 units, in first phase of Howard Hughes Corp.’s Ward master plan
May 21, 2013, 9:44am HST Updated: May 21, 2013, 1:50pm HST
Duane Shimogawa | Reporter- Pacific Business News
The Howard Hughes Corp. plans to add more than 900 residential units in two market-rate condominium towers and one mostly affordable residential tower as part of the first phase of its Ward Village master plan in Honolulu’s Kakaako neighborhood.
This rendering shows The Howard Hughes Corp.’s planned market-rate condominium towers, which located diagonally across the street from each other at the corner of Auahi and Kamakee streets, part of the developer’s Ward Village master-planned community.
David Striph, senior vice president of Hawaii for Dallas-based Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE: HHC) said Tuesday that the developer is in the process of renovating the iconic IBM Building into a new information center and sales gallery as part of its first phase of the 60-acre urban master planned community that would eventually double the retail, dining and entertainment space in Kakaako.
Ninety percent of the units in a 415-unit tower planned for 404 Ward Ave., which would include commercial space and parking, would be affordable, with the rest market rate.
Nick Vanderboom, senior vice president of development for The Howard Hughes Corp., said that the two market rate towers — one planned for a surface parking lot across from the Consolidated Theatres Ward Stadium 16 and the other at the current Pier 1 Imports location diagonally across the street — will have a total of 500 units. Pier 1 Imports (NYSE: PIR) will be relocated to another spot to accommodate the tower.
Vanderboom said that one tower will have 300 units and the other will have 200 units, but the price ranges for both are still being worked out.
Visit www.KakaakoProperties.com for more Kaka’ako information
The plan is to build the out the first phase concurrently with the affordable tower being the first application submitted to the Hawaii Community Development Authority. A hearing for the project is scheduled for next month.
Vanderboom says he expects that it will submit applications for the other projects some time this summer.
Groundbreaking for the first phase is scheduled for early next year with an expected finish date in early 2016, he said.
Howard Hughes Corp. has selected architects for the first phase, including an unidentified local firm, but has yet to choose general contractors for the first phase, Vanderboom said.
This first phase is expected to have an economic impact of $1.25 billion, create 9,000 direct and indirect jobs and add more than 1.5 million square feet as well as more than 900 residential units to Kakaako, which is being called “The Third City.”
Howard Hughes Corp. said that it has gone beyond many of the requirements for development under the master plan approved by the HCDA, noting that the towers in the first phase will have a mauka-makai orientation, which will showcase the views for residents while preserving the skyline for others.
The company also plans to build more than three times the required affordable housing in the first phase and new buildings along Ala Moana Boulevard will be set back to create a “greenbelt lined with townhouses.”
Ward’s approved master plan allows for up to 9.3 million total square feet of mixed-use development, including more than 4,000 residential units and about 1.5 million square feet of retail and other commercial space, said David Weinreb, CEO of Howard Hughes, in a letter to shareholders in March.
He noted that Ward Village has development rights for 22 high-rise towers in an urban master-planned community setting. Ward Village’s transformation is scheduled to happen throughout the next decade.
Visit www.KakaakoProperties.com for more Kaka’ako information
Kakaako’s Building Boom – Part One
Landowners and the state share a vision of a walkable, live-work-and-play community with both high- and low-rise buildings.
When the governor takes a meeting at the trendy Fresh Café in the midst of Kakaako’s gritty warren of body shops and warehouses, something big is cooking. When the meeting includes a major landowner and innovators from the community, you can bet what’s cooking is Kakaako itself.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie called that recent meeting to discuss what he calls the “Third City,” a live-work-and-play urban neighborhood of the near future with cafes, parks, lofts, preschools and senior centers, startups, stores, and high-rises with upscale and affordable housing.
Visions of a transformed Kakaako have been bandied about for three decades, but this time the landowners and state agencies are working together more closely, and dozens of projects are going forward in the next few years. If it comes together, it will be a multibillion-dollar investment that brings jobs, housing and new vitality to Honolulu’s core.
Currently available Kaka’ako area properties for sale
“We’re gearing up for a new day for Kakaako,” Abercrombie says. “We have a chance to initiate the next, exciting urban center in the country.”
In a rush of words, he describes a walkable community of high-rise condos and rentals, including the state’s tallest building, plus stores, innovative businesses, and sites for music, dance and artistic expression – all reflecting Hawaii’s culture and our Pacific location.
The big private landowners are generally in sync with this vision. “It’s the most exciting asset in our portfolio. We’re definitely moving forward,” says David M. Striph, senior VP-Hawaii for the Howard Hughes Corp., Kakaako’s largest private landowner with 60 acres, including the Ward Centers.
Of course, not all conflicts are over. The Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA), the state agency that oversees Kakaako’s development, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs disagree over plans to upgrade Kewalo Basin, a small harbor now used mostly by tour companies. Other disputes are simmering, but, barring an economic catastrophe, a transformation of much of Kakaako’s 670 acres appears unstoppable.
It will happen with or without rail. But, if rail goes ahead, there will be two stations here: the first, called Civic Center, at Halekauwila near Keauhou Street; the second, called Kakaako Station, will be near where the Ross store is on Ward Avenue.
Once thought of as the ugly duckling of urban Honolulu, a place crowded with repair shops, warehouses and other low-rent businesses, Kakaako has had more than 40 projects and $200 million worth of infrastructure improvements completed since 1988 in preparation for its full emergence as Honolulu’s new swan. Here are some of the upcoming projects:
- The state’s half-billion-dollar transit-oriented development, called 690 Pohukaina, will include the state’s tallest building, at 650 feet, and a mix of affordable and market-priced residential units for sale and rent. Bids to plan, build and operate it were due by the end of August. The first phase is in the permit stage.
- Howard Hughes Corp. plans next fall to open the Ward Village Shops Phase II on Auahi Street, next to the T.J. Maxx store, comprising 57,000 square feet of retail space over two floors.
- Kamehameha Schools, with 29 Kakaako acres mauka of Ala Moana boulevard, has three pending projects: 54 affordable loft-style apartments, with rents from $1,400 to $1,600 a month, will be available for rent starting this month or next in the repurposed building at 680 Ala Moana; a 400-foot residential tower and low-rise townhomes to be built by Alexander & Baldwin on the former CompUSA site with scheduled construction start date in 2014; and a low-rise gathering place with cafes, shops and open space just mauka of 680 Ala Moana, and bounded by Auahi, Coral and Keawe Streets.
As part of that project, modifications of existing buildings on Auahi Street are scheduled to begin next year and finish in 2014, KS says. This $30-million urban square will be called Salt to commemorate the salt ponds that Hawaiians built in this area in the 1700s, says KS development manager Linda Schatz.
Currently available Kaka’ako area properties for sale
“This ingenuity has become a source of inspiration,” says Schatz. “It will be the outdoor living room for the residents and tenants in that area, a place where people can hang out, gather, bump into friends. It’s on a human scale.”
By Beverly Creamer
HawaiiBusiness.com
