Performance dance movements in a laundry room, a flourish of magic and servings of “radical reform to Spam musubi” were on display in a new Kakaako apartment building that recently held a very creative grand opening.

The event, which was also part open house and part art exhibition, attracted an estimated 350 public visitors Thursday evening to the eight-story complex at 1025 Waimanu St. where nearly all the occupants are artists.

Fifteen residents in the 84-unit Ola ka ‘Ilima Artspace Lofts building opened their homes/work spaces for the public display.

Andrew Wang, an indie virtual reality game designer, let guests in his apartment play a game he’s developing where players build a towering, and eventually unstable, layer cake for a monster.

>> PHOTOS: Ola ka ‘Ilima Artspace Lofts open house

Lauren Trangmar built her cake up to around 80 feet before it toppled over and nearly crushed her virtual character.

“It looked like the cake was falling down on top of me,” she said after contorting her body and mildly shrieking as the dessert came crashing to the ground.

Rathana So held a cooking demonstration in her apartment featuring the musubi where Spam was substituted with oyster mushrooms or tofu.

“The reason why I’m doing this is because a lot of processed meats are made with byproducts,” So said. “It causes a lot of health issues.”

Other artist residents performed in the building’s third-story courtyard, including several musicians and magician Deborah Sur, who produced a colorful display of magic with representations of ilima flower petals exploding from her hand.

Body Portal Theatre, a group led by choreographer and Ola ka ‘Ilima resident SheenRu Yong, turned the building’s laundry room into a silent performance dance showplace for people watching through louvered glass windows fronting the courtyard.

Earlier in the day, two nonprofit firms that developed the $53 million project on land leased from the state, Minnesota-based Artspace Projects and an affiliate of California-based EAH Housing, held a ceremony for about 100 invited guests who included project team members, government officials and financial backers who helped produce Hawaii’s first live/work complex dedicated to artists with low incomes.

Ola ka ‘Ilima — which features monthly rental rates ranging from $615 to $1,766 for loft-style apartments with one, two or three bedrooms — had been a struggle largely because of financing challenges that led to years of delays and an overall development timetable of about a decade.

The Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency, leased the land to the nonprofits for 65 years at $1 a year, and the developers obtained construction financing almost entirely from state, city and federal sources. PA‘I Foundation, led by kumu hula Vicky Holt Takamine, was also a driving force in the project that received support from several private foundations.

Kelley Lindquist, Artspace president, called Ola ka ‘Ilima a “life journey.”

Lisa Goodman, a Minneapolis City Council member who is a longtime Artspace supporter and attended Thursday’s event, said the federal government isn’t producing affordable housing.

“Artists, makers and creatives — you are the heart of our community, yet you do not get paid as well as you should for the work that you do,” she said. “And it is because of organizations like Artspace that you will live in a dignified and respectful community.”

Tenants were selected through a process that included a lottery, income verification and a panel that assessed each applicant’s dedication to art.

A legal preference for apartments can be given to artists because federal fair-housing law designates artists as a special group for which a housing preference isn’t discriminatory.

The income limit applying to most units is $50,640 for a single person or $72,300 for a family of four, which equates to 60% of the median household income in Honolulu. A few units also are reserved for tenants who earn no more than 30% of the median income.

Evan Nelson, a contemporary artist and Artspace resident, described Ola ka ‘Ilima as a “stunning” place to live and work.

Nelson and his partner, photographer and mixed-media artist Kimo Lauer, were able to move back to Hawaii because of Ola ka ‘Ilima after 20 years living in the Los Angeles area.

Lauer, who grew up on Oahu, had about a dozen photographs displayed in a multipurpose room at Ola ka ‘Ilima. Subjects in the portrait photos included musician Moby, architect Frank Gehry and big-wave surfer Nic Lamb.

Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and producer Kimie Miner moved her family of four, including two children under 2, to Ola ka ‘Ilima from a studio in Hauula.

“I could cry,” she said. “I was so happy when we found out that we got a space here.”

Miner said she no longer makes 2-hour round trips for work in town and now doesn’t have to rent a hotel room to avoid driving home after late evening shows in Waikiki. “It has literally changed the quality of our life,” she said.

Jayson Semetara, a costume maker who goes by the character name Astromech and dressed as Superman for the grand opening, said Ola ka ‘Ilima is an inspiring place to live.

“It’s hard to put it in words,” he said. “You have so many people here who have different interpretations of art that it makes your imagination even grow wider — giving you more opportunity to share art as well as share ideas.”