Few news stories induce a gasp in nearly every paragraph, but last Sunday’s account of the groundbreaking for the Howard Hughes Corp.’s 36-story Waiea luxury condominium at Ward Center was such a story.

The governor and mayor were invited to the groundbreaking, as were investors, Realtors and unions. The public was not invited.

Any more questions about who the mad rush to develop Kakaako is intended to benefit?

The 171 units at Waiea are priced from $1.5 million for one bedroom to $20 million for garden-variety penthouses.

This is workforce housing if you work as a bank vice president and up — way up.

A "grand penthouse" with its own pool is expected to sell for just under $100 million.

To think that the cash to shelter one billionaire could house all of the homeless tenters surrounding the University of Hawaii medical school a few blocks away, plus the next several generations of their families.

An investor from Malaysia said she likes the building’s address, 1118 Ala Moana Blvd., because "1118 is a good number in Cantonese. It means every day, every day, every day you are making money."

Keep moving along, folks. No greed to see here.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie lectured the public that wasn’t invited not to create a "false nostalgia" for the swampland that Kakaako used to be.

Gee, can we at least be nostalgic for being able to look up and see the actual sky instead of seeing it through the reflections of glass towers?

Abercrombie said that never before have political, social and economic forces come together in such a collaborative way.

Well, maybe once before in May when Hughes and other Kakaako development interests such as Stanford Carr, D.R. Horton, Castle & Cooke, Prudential Locations and Coldwell Banker threw a fundraiser for the governor.

To clear the way for Waiea to be all-luxury, the Hawaii Community Development Authority allowed Hughes to meet a requirement for "moderately priced" housing by cramming 424 units into a 400-foot tower that doesn’t meet setback rules on a small lot at 404 Ward.

HCDA uses the old Burger King model for regulating Kakaako developers: "Have it your way."

Mayor Kirk Caldwell praised the Hughes plan for a 3.44-acre Village Green ringed by cafes on Ward Avenue, saying it’s important "that we still remain connected to this place, and the people who walked these lands way before the rest of us showed up."

Yes, the ancient Hawaiians enjoyed stopping for a Starbucks and a cranberry scone on their way to tend the fishponds.

After waxing eloquent on Honolulu’s special sense of place, Caldwell compared the city’s future to Asian capitals such as Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Any more questions about who these condos are for?

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.