‘Second city’ coming along

Four moderate-height condo towers are being planned for Kapolei, but reasonable questions have been raised about whether these new West Oahu residents will commute to urban Honolulu or work nearby. Most office buildings in the "second city" are government facilities, so more private companies must be enticed to set up in Kapolei in order to ease traffic concerns.

Franco Mola’s Coastal Rim Properties Inc. is proposing to build Kapolei’s first condo towers, about 10 to 12 stories each, in Kapolei’s downtown business district. The parcel is currently designated commercial, so city rezoning will be needed for the towers, envisioned to have 580 residential units, ground-floor retail space, a community garden and central courtyard, and open-air pavilions. One tower is designated as affordable senior housing; the other three are being deemed workforce housing.

One key question is where the potential occupants’ work will be located. Kioni Dudley, the Maka­kilo-Kapo­lei-Hono­kai Hale Neighborhood Board’s planning and zoning chairman, is skeptical about area jobs, saying residents would be commuting to jobs far away.

"Our whole problem out here is that all we get is bedroom communities … and we have to depend on jobs in Honolulu rather than in our second city," said Dudley. "Our freeway just gets more … crowded with people going into Ho-nolulu because … there’s no real business center."

Indeed, while retail stores are abundant in Kapolei, most of the offices are governmental — city and state regional offices, a state library, a state Judiciary building for family courts, a Social Security office and, nearby, the new FBI headquarters for Hawaii. But Steve Kelly, vice president of Kapolei Property Development, part of Kapolei developer James Campbell Co., remains optimistic.

"We’ve seen quite a bit of success in Kapolei in terms of job generation," he said. "While that doesn’t happen overnight, we’re fully expecting the second city to continue to grow and continue to provide jobs for the island. …From our standpoint, it’s a pretty vibrant city."

Also, Honolulu-based Avalon Development Co. has completed the first phase of a Kapolei Pacific Center, where a private school opened in 2011, and the Social Security office relocated from nearby Halekuai Center in July. The third phase will consist of commercial and office space, said Avalon Vice President Steve Kothenbeutel. When the recession postponed construction in 2009, the facility had been nearly fully leased to health care and professional service employers.

Kothenbeutel noted that rents in Honolulu are less than in Kapolei so office companies have been reluctant to move to the second city, far from where many executives live. He said that is likely to change as "the body of their workforce" comes to live in the Kapolei area and the rail line between Kapolei and Ala Moana is completed.

Such optimism and justification could help sway support for Mola’s Kapolei condos, but more details are needed.

A public briefing before the neighborhood board last month was short on specifics, which only added to anxiety over this project.

Patience is needed for Kapolei to assume all the characteristics of a real city. These first workforce condos in Kapolei’s city center might well add to, not detract from, this thriving district’s live/work/play appeal if done right.