State agencies want to turn Pawaa property into affordable housing and a facility for troubled youth

A deteriorating and underused juvenile detention center in Honolulu owned by the state is being eyed as an opportunity to increase the supply of affordable housing and produce new facilities serving troubled children.

Two state agencies are pursuing a nearly $80 million plan to redevelop the 1.5-acre site in Pawaa by building an 18-story tower that would include about 180 residential apartments above a few floors of secure juvenile facilities.

The project is being touted as an efficient and publicly beneficial reuse of a prime state property, although the plan failed to win an endorsement from the Ala Moana-Kakaako Neighborhood Board.

“It’s a very worthwhile project for the community to support both children and affordable-housing needs,” Don Clifford, a project manager with local design firm SSFM International, which is working on the project, told the neighborhood board last month.

Rental apartments would be available to residents earning no more than 60 percent of the annual median income, which equates to $28,680 for a single person and $40,920 for a family of four.

The board entertained a motion to support the conceptual plan, but no one seconded the motion so there was no vote.

Support from the board is helpful but not necessary for proposed projects to obtain permits, because neighborhood boards serve mostly in an advisory capacity to city and state government actions.

No one at the meeting made negative comments about the plan, except to say it would be better if the wide side of the proposed tower didn’t face Elm Street and the neighboring Sheridan Community Park so that more mauka-makai views could be preserved.

The city doesn’t have rules pertaining to tower orientation.

Zoning for the property, which occupies most of a block bordered by Piikoi, Alder, Elm and King streets, is medium-density apartment use known as A-2.

The building height limit is 150 feet, which is less than the roughly 180 feet for an 18-story tower, although additional height is permitted under rules for transit-oriented development given that a planned city rail station is within a half-mile of the project site. Affordable-housing projects are also eligible for exemptions to zoning restrictions.

The two agencies pursuing the plan are the state Judiciary, which controls the site, and the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., an agency that facilitates affordable-housing development.

The property, which includes connected one- and two-story buildings that date to before 1949, was gifted to the city by the Okamura family to help serve children in the court system. At the time of the gift, the local court system was operated by the city.

Under state operation, the Juvenile Detention Center was later relocated and expanded in a facility next to a Family Court complex in Kapolei.

Two small operations remain at the Pawaa site, one of which is a counseling and rehabilitation facility called Home Maluhia that houses up to six girls and six boys. This program serves status offenders, or children who violate youth-specific laws such as truancy or curfew. Other participants include children who commit serious but not extreme crimes such as abuse of a family member.

The other operation is Hale Hilina‘i, which teaches juveniles who are on probation about accountability and sense of community.

Rod Maile, administrative director of the Judiciary, said ideas for how to better use the property go back about five years to when then-Sen. Carol Fukunaga raised the subject. More recently, Rep. Scott Saiki, who represents the area Fukunaga did previously, asked the Judiciary to explore possibilities with HHFDC.

“It turned out that our needs and our goals were very similar,” Maile said at the neighborhood board meeting.

The two agencies propose to separately fund their own pieces of the project. HHFDC would contribute $54 million that it has in existing housing funds. It is estimated that the Judiciary piece would cost $25.2 million.

Gov. David Ige has included $15 million for the project in his proposed state budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year after $1.5 million was approved in this year’s budget for design work on the project. The balance has a commitment from the Legislature, according to the Judiciary.

As part of the permitting process, the project needs to produce an environmental assessment, a draft of which is expected to be published shortly.

The Judiciary had no estimate as to when construction might start if all approvals and funding are received.