Honolulu rail officials took an initial step Friday toward preserving the option to someday extend the rail line past Ala Moana Center, up to the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

With construction costs for the partially built project escalating in recent years to more than $8 billion, city officials have focused on securing only the funds needed to complete the elevated line to Ala Moana Center from Middle Street. A segment to UH Manoa has been viewed as unfeasible given the project’s financing struggles, which have required bailouts from the state Legislature just to complete the first 20 miles into town.

But a 2007 law passed by the City Council and signed by former Mayor Mufi Hannemann lays out the city’s so-called “locally preferred alternative” for the project as a fixed guideway system between Kapolei and UH Manoa. The legislation prescribes rail’s alignment along certain roads and highways from West Oahu to the mall and along Kapiolani Boulevard to get to UH.

Part of that pathway has since been blocked off by at least two high-rise developments being built near Ala Moana Center.

Andrew Robbins, newly hired executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, said in an effort to be “prudent,” HART wants to study how the rail line might be maneuvered from its final stop near the mall on Kona Street onto Kapiolani Boulevard.

“I don’t think it would be prudent to build our line and have no opportunity whatsoever to extend it in the future,” Robbins told reporters Friday. “There’s a lot of community interest to get to UH Manoa, for example. Some people want to go to Waikiki in the future; that’s very controversial. But for us to work on this line, construct it, put it in operation and preclude the possibility of ever extending it beyond Ala Moana, I think, would not be prudent.”

The HART board voted Friday to allow rail staff to seek approval from the City Council and the mayor to “conduct a study of planning and engineering activities” within a half-mile radius of the Ala Moana Center rail station to allow future development of the line to UH Manoa.

“There’s been recent real estate developments in the Ala Moana area which essentially block any future extension of the rail route. So in order to preserve the corridor and to be able to potentially extend the line to UH Manoa in the future … all we were seeking from the board is to see how we might be able to get onto Kapiolani Boulevard,” Robbins said.

He identified two planned projects standing in the previously envisioned pathway to the university: the 45-story Kapiolani Residence, mauka of the Ala Moana Hotel, and the 36-story Manaolana condominium-hotel tower at Atkinson Drive and Kapiolani Boulevard.

Robbins said one possibility would be to create a separate line to branch off before the Ala Moana station.

“We’re looking at maybe three or four different options on how we could come off of the rail route and find the path to Kapiolani (Boulevard). One would, of course, be beyond the Ala Moana station, … possibly continuing the route and make a turn onto Kapiolani,” he said. “The other options would involve some kind of branch line before the train would arrive at Ala Moana station. … Essentially we’d have two routes: We’d have one route to Ala Moana and another route to UH Manoa.”

In addition to studying the options, the rail board’s motion also asks the City Council to “take any appropriate action including any acquisition of right-of-way” to allow future development of the extension to UH Manoa. Robbins declined to say which properties, if any, might be acquired to make way for rail.

“We have to study that. We’re not going to pinpoint any specific properties right now,” he said. “It’s really just studying at this point that we would like to do, just to make sure that there is a future path if the City Council, through the public process, determines that we would want to extend this line in the future.”

Abbey Mayer, HART’s director of planning, permitting and right-of-way, emphasized that HART is not seeking authority to build an extension at this time. He said if the city wanted to pursue routes beyond Ala Moana, “a robust and formal series of planning studies and alternative analyses” would be required and have to go before the City Council.

“The authorization we’d be seeking from (the City) Council is to just look at this in the most preliminary means possible and see if there are certain property rights that we need to preserve so that this option is available in the future,” Mayer said.

The rail board has been dealing with property rights issues along the existing 20-mile rail line, and has initiated eminent domain proceedings against private property owners in some cases.