Hawaii Pacific University expanding its downtown Honolulu footprint
ED LYNCH / elynch@staradvertiser.com
Waterfront Plaza, which consists of seven buildings on Ala Moana Boulevard, will be home to some of Hawaii Pacific University’s operations as early as July, school officials announced today. HPU is also expanding to the Pioneer Plaza tower on Fort Street Mall.
Hawaii Pacific University has pinned down where in downtown Honolulu it will move much of its remaining facilities from its main Windward Oahu campus over the next two years to further fulfill a 2014 master plan.
HPU officials said today that the school will lease about 20 percent of the office complex Waterfront Plaza at 500 Ala Moana Boulevard and a smaller chunk of the Pioneer Plaza office tower for classroom space, labs, a library and other uses.
The amount of space totals about 100,000 square feet at Waterfront Plaza, which is commonly referred to as Restaurant Row, and about 20,000 square feet at Pioneer Plaza at 900 Fort Street Mall. Together, the space is about the size of a 12-story building.
Many of the relocated operations will be from HPU’s Hawaii Loa campus in Kaneohe, although some are also being moved from other downtown buildings leased by the university.
HPU anticipates starting the move as early as July and completing it by May 2020.
The move is the latest big step in a master plan HPU crafted four years ago to become an urban university with a “campus” of facilities clustered downtown.
This plan was largely made possible with HPU’s purchase of the buildings at Aloha Tower Marketplace in 2013. The university turned vacant retail shop space fronting Honolulu Harbor into classrooms, dorms and other facilities. Then in 2016, HPU sold its 132-acre Hawaii Loa campus to Castle Medical Center with an agreement for the university to stay as a tenant for up to five years.
