Hawaii Pacific University is poised to be the largest private occupant of real estate in Honolulu’s central business district. Within the next few years, as it completes a move to house programs in closer proximity, HPU will be leasing some 350,000 square feet of space. Classrooms will be held in Waterfront Plaza (formerly Restaurant Row), Pioneer Plaza at Fort Street Mall and in other buildings.

With the relocation from a windward-side campus, about 1,000 students will be pulling up stakes, too. And given a total HPU student enrollment of about 5,000, consolidation will likely spur downtown economic activity as well as competition for on-street parking.

Cracks cause a big headache in S.F.

San Francisco’s latest transit woes can be read as a cautionary tale for Honolulu. Cracks in two major beams at its new $2 billion transit terminal has forced the facility to close while inspections continue. So much for what had been dubbed the “Grand Central of the West.”

Let’s hope builders can salvage an edifice worthy of that name. Meanwhile, this city’s rail system in 2016 turned up its own cracks in plastic “shims” that level the rail surface. Very minor in comparison — but let’s also hope to steer clear of anything worse in the modest terminal center pegged for Ala Moana, all of which seems a long way off.