For rent: New apartments in Kakaako for less than $1,000 a month with partial ocean views and a short walk from Ala Moana Center, the beach and a planned rail station.

This opportunity helped attract more than 500 applicants for the 128-unit Hale Kewalo midrise scheduled to welcome its first residents Wednesday.

The developer of the largely state-financed $53 million project reserved for low-income households hosted a blessing ceremony Monday after 15 months of construction and about eight years of planning and delays stretching back to a prior developer.

“E komo mai (come in),” announced Hale Kewalo’s developer Stanford Carr after the blessing and maile lei untying at the entrance to the 11-story building.

The project at 450 Piikoi St. is on the Diamond Head edge of Kakaako just Ewa of Ala Moana Center and mauka of a cluster of four luxury condominium towers, the last of which, Waihonua, triggered a requirement to produce affordable housing that became Hale Kewalo.

Under rules of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency regulating development in Kakaako, affordable homes equivalent to 20 percent of Waihonua’s 341 condos needed to be produced. As rentals, the homes needed to be affordable to residents earning no more than Honolulu’s median income and kept affordable for 15 years.

Waihonua’s developer, Honolulu-based Alexander &Baldwin Inc., announced in 2011 that it planned to exceed the requirement by building 72 one-bedroom rentals in a five-story building where rental rates would be affordable for 50 years and for seniors earning no more than 60 percent of Honolulu’s median income.

A&B was required to start building Hale Kewalo before the end of 2016, but encountered difficulties and ended up transferring the site to Carr along with $1.9 million.

Carr reworked the project to add 56 more units, including some with two or three bedrooms, and to keep the apartments affordable for 61 years. Carr also made the homes available to households without an age restriction at the 60 percent median income limit, and reserved about a dozen units for households earning no more than 30 percent of the median income.

The state made the expansion possible with $29 million in bonds, $4.4 million in federal and state tax credits and a $14 million loan from the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., a state agency that helps finance affordable housing.

Gov. David Ige said Hale Kewalo was one of the first affordable-housing projects considered by his administration after his first term began in 2015.

“We talked about doing Kakaako better, and about bringing affordable rentals into this community because it’s definitely something that our community asked for,” he said at the ceremony.

Ige praised the public- private partnership and said Hale Kewalo, which includes many units with partial ocean views, doesn’t look or feel like affordable housing.

Julian Sensley, a single father and personal trainer at a UFC Gym, agreed.

“It’s the nicest you’re going to get,” he said. “It’s beautiful. The location you can’t beat.”

Sensley was one of the lucky applicants selected for the now 100% leased Hale Kewalo, and is moving out of a duplex rental in Kahaluu that he split with his mother, Suzanne Karsten, a methadone clinic counselor who was selected for her own unit in Hale Kewalo.

“I love it,” Karsten said. “It’s brand new. It’s really nice.”

Monthly rent ranges from $656 to $1,093 for one-bedroom units, $787 to $1,575 for two-bedroom units and $1,819 for three-bedroom units.

The 60 percent median income limit for tenants equates to $49,020 for a single person, $55,980 for a couple and $69,960 for a family of four.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Honolulu needs more projects like Hale Kewalo where the need from residents is greatest and the urban location is close to jobs, schools and recreation.

“From right here we can walk, and in 10 minutes we’re at Ala Moana Beach Park,” he said. “This is the dream. Make the city more city to keep the country more country.”