A developer proposing to replace YMCA of Honolulu facilities just outside Waikiki with a new Y and a condominium tower is asking the city for a zoning change to allow a taller and higher-density building than presently allowed.
The Y recently applied to rezone its 1.8-acre property on Atkinson Drive across from Ala Moana Center, in a move to allow a 350-foot tower with high density on the site presently zoned for medium-density use up to 150 feet.
The request comes almost a year after the Y announced a plan to sell most of its Atkinson property to a developer as a way to pay for replacing its 62-year-old facility in need of renewal.
But the developer now aims to build more units than initially anticipated, and said additional density is necessary to achieve the redevelopment plan.
PlanPacific Inc., the consultant for project developer Aloha Kai Development LLC, said in the zoning application that building a new Y facility on the site can’t be done without additional density provided by the requested zoning change from A-2, the medium-density apartment district, to AMX-3, the high-density apartment mixed-use district.
PlanPacific also said the additional height would result in a skinnier building that reduces negative impacts on views in the area.
The request has drawn some opposition from the chairman of the Ala Moana Neighborhood Board, Larry Hurst, who has reviewed the zoning application.
Hurst said the additional density will create too much extra traffic on a street that already gets congested.
"Their traffic study says there’s problems," he said. "Increasing the density there is not a good idea. There’s a reason the zoning is A-2."
The Y project is slated to be a topic of discussion at the board’s Tuesday meeting. A zoning change also will involve public hearings before the City Council that have yet to be scheduled.
PlanPacific suggests that AMX-3 zoning is consistent with policies and guidelines of the latest version of the city’s Primary Urban Center Development Plan adopted in 2004.
The firm also said the city development plan permits high-density housing around transit stations, and that a transit station is planned within a half-mile at Ala Moana Center.
The A-2 zoning on the Y property was set in 1982, and reduced previous density and height limits in the area where some older buildings built around 1970 were allowed to rise up to nearly 400 feet.
For instance, the Ala Moana Hotel, built in 1970 across Atkinson, is 396 feet and contains 1,169 units. Sunset Tower on the mauka side of the Y was built in 1969 and is 180 feet with 81 units. And Yacht Harbor Towers makai of the Y was built in 1973 with two towers rising 351 feet and containing 459 units.
PlanPacific said the developer of Yacht Harbor Towers intended to build a third tower on a major portion of the Y site but instead conveyed the land to the nonprofit that had built its Central Y on the site in 1951.
In a statement, Aloha Kai Development said it is sensitive to the impact of a short and broad building allowed under current zoning, and that a taller building would be much slimmer than Yacht Harbor Towers or the Ala Moana Hotel.
"The developer is hopeful the neighborhood will appreciate and support its efforts to create more elegance and less mass," the statement said. "The developer believes the community will be pleased and proud of the new YMCA and the overall development."
PlanPacific included some rudimentary line drawings of the tower in the zoning application, but the developer said no artistic renderings have been made.
Under the arrangement with the Y, the developer would pay about $6 million for 1.5 acres on which to build the condo. The Y would use the proceeds to finance a new facility on the roughly one-third of an acre it is retaining.
A new three-story Y estimated to cost $8 million or $9 million would be a contemporary, family-oriented facility featuring a swimming pool and a youth center offering after-school and summer child care, teen programs and services. About 115 rooms presently at the Y used for short- and long-term residences would not be replaced.
MICHAEL Broderick, the Y’s president and CEO, said last year that the organization values being in Honolulu’s urban core where the need for its services is great, but facility maintenance and overhead costs at the Central Y had become unaffordable.
The Y serves more than 100,000 people annually on Oahu with a variety of programs at eight branches plus Camp H.R. Erdman on the North Shore. Its annual operating budget is about $26 million.
Last year the Y said its deal with the developer called for a condo with 120 units. The zoning application states the condo dubbed Aloha Kai would contain 156 units in a 39-story tower with a private park and 282 parking stalls. (The Y would continue to lease 115 parking spaces in Yacht Harbor Towers.)
Under city zoning rules, a zoning change would require that affordable housing be included in the project. But the developer is asking to deliver affordable housing elsewhere in urban Honolulu because putting such units in its proposed tower would put the project at "financial risk."
Initially the developer was identified as MB Property Acquisitions LLC, a San Francisco-based firm led by Michael J. Blumenthal which was a partner in the venture that developed the 212-unit Watermark Waikiki condo tower in 2008.
Blumenthal has partnered with an affiliate of Tokyo-based housing developer Tama Home Co. Ltd. to do business as Aloha Kai Development for the Y project.
If a zoning change is granted, the developer projects closing the Y in September and demolishing existing buildings by the end of the year. A new Y would be completed by mid-2014. No development timetable for the condo was provided in the zoning application.
The developer said more than 300 jobs would be generated by the project, including 250 to 350 for construction, more than 35 to operate the Y and possibly 20 to operate the condo.
