Honolulu developer Stanford Carr broke ground Friday on the 423-unit Keauhou Place high-rise condominium, the first residential project to include a city rail station in Kakaako.
The 43-story, 400-foot project at 555 South St. near Waterfront Plaza will include 388 tower residences and 35 midrise townhouses on a block connected with one of 21 planned rail stations at a cost of about $300 million.
"This is going to be a groundbreaking project in a sense that a portion of the project will include the transit station," said Anthony Ching, executive director of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, at the ceremony, which included a traditional Hawaiian blessing. "This project has many design features that are noteworthy, with the inclusion of affordable rentals as well as for-sale units. It’s really something that I think is going to showcase downtown living."
The rail station slated to be built on one side of the block will connect with a pedestrian promenade running mauka-makai through the rental complex above retail space. Construction of the tower is expected to take about two years to complete. Sales, which began in March, continue to be strong with 345 units, or about 82 percent of the project, already sold. Condo prices at Keauhou Place range from $357,000 to $1.4 million.
"’Keauhou’ means transformation — what more appropriate meaning with what’s going on today in Kakaako," Carr told the audience, which included real estate agents, union leaders and financing partners. "This is our interpretation of integrated transit-oriented development, and we’re very proud of it."
The streets surrounding the project will be lined with ground-floor retail stores and have wider sidewalks "so that you can have cafes spill out with tables and chairs along the street edge," he added.
Along Pohukaina Street there will be four levels of townhouses "so that you’re not seeing a 400-foot high-rise adjacent to the sidewalk, but you’re really looking at architecture of a humanistic scale."
Likewise the townhouses along South Street will be built with 30-foot front-yard setbacks, as well as 8-foot wide pedestrian sidewalks lined with a double canopy of trees — for a much safer, friendlier, more walkable neighborhood, Carr said.
"I do believe at the end of all of this, people are going to live and celebrate in the urban core much differently than they had before," said Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony. "It’s going to be a great way to live, get to work real quick, get home real quick and either make money or celebrate life with your loved ones."
