Condo towers planned for Kapolei

In recent months an announcement of a new high-rise condominium tower usually meant it was going up in Kakaako, but today a developer will outline plans to build four condo towers in Kapo­lei.

Franco Mola’s Coastal Rim Properties Inc. is proposing to build Kapo­lei’s first condominium towers in the downtown business district of Oahu’s "second city."

The four towers will be about 10 to 12 stories each, enclosing one city block with a courtyard in the center.

Coastal Rim is scheduled to pre­sent the plans tonight to a meeting of the Maka­kilo-Kapo­lei-Hono­kai Hale Neighborhood Board.

One tower is designated as affordable senior housing, while the other three buildings are earmarked for workforce housing, according to a site plan obtained by the Star-Advertiser. The group expects to bring its proj­ect before the City Council as early as January.

The towers will have ground-floor retail space, as well as a community garden, recreation areas and open-air pavilions.

Mola didn’t return calls for comment, and the site plan does not specify how many units will be in each tower.

Many residents feel that the greatest need to complete a second city is office buildings with jobs that will take Leeward residents off the freeway and provide them work near their homes, said Kioni Dudley, chairman of the neighborhood board’s planning and zoning committee.

"Kapolei is supposed to be a city, but they’ve never built it," Dudley said. "These are the first buildings in the new business district that are of any height whatsoever. It turns out to be condo buildings. Our whole problem out here is that all we get is bedroom communities … and we have to depend on jobs in Hono­lulu rather than in our second city. Our freeway just gets more and more crowded with people going into Hono­lulu because … there’s no real business center."

Kapolei, which has a number of retail developments, a City Hall, state building and state Judiciary complex, isn’t supposed to be just "a long strip mall," Dudley said.

"The downtown business district of Kapo­lei … is currently pretty much of a ghost town, a skeleton grid of cross streets surrounding 60 blocks of empty property," said Dudley. "The city itself is entirely empty. It’s a bunch of cross streets with no buildings in them."

Kapolei Properties, part of the James Campbell Co., developer of downtown Kapo­lei, also is expected to discuss plans for the rapidly growing community at today’s Planning and Zoning Committee meeting.

The property where Mola plans to build was purchased by Goodwill Industries of Hawaii Inc. in 2006 to build a career center, but Goodwill moved locations and built in the Kapo­lei business park. The property is currently in escrow, being sold to Coastal Rim, according to Laura Smith, Goodwill Hawaii’s CEO.

The proposed Kapolei condo towers are a notable break from the recent string of announcements of high-rise towers being planned for Kakaako. Developers have announced plans for at least 11 towers in Kakaako with a total of roughly 5,000 units and another two high-rise rental towers with 1,000 apartments. The concentration of planned towers in Kakaako has given rise to the area being called Oahu’s "third city."

Mola also is proposing to build workforce housing units in Kakaako on a roughly half-acre site now occupied by single-story industrial buildings. To qualify for so-called workforce housing units, renters can earn up to 100 percent of Hono­­lulu’s median income, and fee-simple buyers can earn up to 140 percent. The median household income for a family of four in Hono­lulu is $86,300.

Coastal Rim’s website says Mola has overseen planning and construction of more than 4,300 homes.

Through companies including Coastal Rim Properties, Mola has been involved in development mainly in California and Hawaii, including the 176-unit affordable senior apartment building Kulana Hale in Hono­lulu.