Hale Mahana student housing tower opens in Moiliili despite dispute over private road

A collegiate rental housing tower in Moiliili opened Thursday without a tussle over tenants using a neighboring property owner’s private road to get into or out of the new building’s parking garage.

On Saturday local real estate investment firm The Malulani Group painted its block-long section of the road with the words “private access” at two ends and strung up a rope along one side of the road fronting the parking garage.

That rope was down Thursday, and access to the garage of the $110 million Hale Mahana tower was uninhibited.

Still, Malulani contends that the tower’s developer, a partnership between two mainland firms, needs Malulani’s permission to use the road as an entryway to the tower because that’s different from the general public use of the road as a thoroughfare to other streets, which has been permitted for decades.

The two sides are contesting the issue in state Circuit Court through a lawsuit Malulani filed last year.

Malulani contends that the tower for 590 students, teachers and other staff of local universities will create a dangerous situation on the lane, which lacks enough space for pedestrians and two-way vehicle traffic.

The tower development partnership between California-based Laconia Development LLC and Tennessee- based EdR Collegiate Housing widened the lane by five feet using its property and added a sidewalk to its side of the lane, but that part of the road is not yet open because two telephone poles have yet to be removed from what was previously the road shoulder.