Kamehameha Drive-In residential towers plan is recast

A local development partnership has arranged to take over a long-stalled $800 million plan to turn the former Kam Drive-In movie theater site in Aiea into a high-rise housing complex.

However, the partnership, led by kamaaina developer Stanford Carr, wants to substantially revise what was permitted by the city on the 14-acre site next to Pearlridge Center.

Carr proposes increasing the height of four towers, keeping a fifth tower roughly the same and eliminating a sixth tower that was the smallest of the bunch.

The revised plan also would nix a planned hotel, cut back on retail space and produce considerably more affordable homes while also making a large number of these homes affordable to folks with low and very low incomes as opposed to only moderate-income households.

The total number of homes would fall to 1,401 from 1,500.

Carr shared his plan with the Aiea Neighborhood Board on Monday night, and characterized it as a positive refinement of a dense smart-growth project close to a city rail station.

“This is an opportunity to create a mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented development,” he told the board. “We’re excited about it.”

In an interview later, Carr said the project would be the first new residential community added to the area in 40 years, and would provide a large amount of affordable housing that includes low-income rentals.

“We’re building homes for local people,” he said.

To carry out the new plan, Carr will seek to amend a development agreement with the city that permitted the original project, dubbed Live, Work, Play Aiea by Robertson Properties Group, a California-based affiliate of the drive-in’s former operator Consolidated Theatres.

Carr, who has a contract to buy the site from Robertson, is expected to face objections from residents living near the site, as did Robertson, which reconfigured an early version of its plan to reduce tower heights and obtained approvals despite a 1,200-signature opposition petition.

“I do not want to see this place look like Kakaako,” Aiea Neighborhood Board Chairman Bill Clark said at the meeting. “It sure does look like it’s going to be that way if this continues on this course.”

Steve DiRico, who lives just Ewa of the project site in the Harbor Pointe condominium, also expressed concerns.

“These monoliths that you’re proposing to build are going to totally block out any morning sun that our complex is going to get,” he said during the meeting.

Carr, who is partnering with longtime Hawaii real estate development and finance executive Mike Wright, is proposing the most substantial tower height increases for two towers closest to Moanalua Road where the mauka edge of the property is 70 feet higher than the makai end of the site.

The uppermost tower would rise 222 feet, up from 150 feet. A tower just makai of this one would rise 277 feet, up from 150 feet.

Zoning for the land allows buildings up to 60 feet, but the city can permit higher buildings under rules accommodating projects within a half-mile of rail stations in conjunction with public-benefit contributions.

A third tower below the first two would rise 303 feet, up from 250 feet. A fourth tower also near the bottom edge of the site but fronting Kaonohi Street would become 348 feet instead of 350 feet, while a fifth tower a bit mauka also fronting Kaonohi Street would rise 342 feet, up from 300 feet.

A sixth tower planned by Robertson for a 120-room business hotel would be eliminated and replaced with open space and surface parking.

Overall density of the revised plan would rise from a maximum allowed under transit-oriented development rules for the area by 14%, and Carr also seeks city permission to allow upper floors of towers to be closer to property lines than transitional height setback rules allow.

Carr proposes increasing the project’s main community benefit — affordable housing — by producing more such homes and for lower-income households.

Robertson agreed to provide 450 affordable homes, or 30% of 1,500 units, for households earning from 80% to 140% of Honolulu’s median household income.

Robertson also had the option to produce some of these homes near other Oahu rail stations — either up to half the total if rented to households earning up to 60% of the median income for a 60-year period, or up to 35% of the total if rented to households earning up to 80% of the median income for a 20-year period.

Carr proposes to deliver at least 543 affordable homes on the project site, or 39% of 1,401 homes, including 96 rentals for households earning between 30% and 60% of the median income, and 144 rentals earning up to the median income. These rentals would remain affordable for 65 years.

To help finance low-income rentals, Carr intends to seek state and city assistance with funding that could include tax credits, tax breaks, fee waivers and low-interest loans under a state affordable-housing law.

Other elements in Carr’s plan, tentatively called Village Waihono at Kalauao, include a signature water feature at the corner of Moanalua Road and Kaonohi Street, a landscaped elevated pedestrian path along Kaonohi Street and less retail.

The pedestrian path would be carved into the sloped side of the site and replace the sidewalk along Kaonohi Street to provide a level walkway running from the street level at the top to a bridge over the project’s main entrance near the property’s bottom end.

The project’s retail component would shrink to 70,000 square feet from 143,000 square feet. A 55,000-square-foot Safeway store is part of the planned mix along with a convenience store, Safeway gas station and Chick-fil-A restaurant with a drive-thru.

Carr said it should be possible to begin construction within two years if he succeeds in obtaining City Council approvals in a process involving public hearings.

Robertson initially floated its high-rise plan for the site in 2010, 12 years after the theater closed, and obtained its development agreement in 2014 with an 8-1 Council vote in which five Council members expressed reservations over not obtaining more concessions from the developer.

An initial phase with retail space and the hotel was projected for completion in 2016, but the company never began construction.

Carr said Robertson, which has primarily developed low-rise retail complexes on former theater sites in California and Hawaii, agreed to limitations that would have allowed 1,500 homes only if they were all studios.

This, Carr said, made the original project unfeasible.