City acquires university dorms and classrooms to create affordable housing

The city has acquired a building that Hawaii Pacific University currently uses for dorms and classrooms in hopes of adding another 100 units to its 1,500-unit affordable housing portfolio.

The Waikiki Vista property came at a cost of about $37.7 million and was purchased using federal American Rescue Act funds, which brought in $386 million to city coffers to combat public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city plans to do renovations to turn the 100 rooms into studio units, although some will be one-bedrooms. They likely will be available to residents earning below 60% of Oahu’s annual median income.

“We’re going to look at really utilizing this facility for the most needy with the highest and greatest impact we can. There are different subgroups that come under that, but none of that has been defined yet,” Mayor Rick Blan­giardi said at Tuesday’s news conference.

“We’re going to be looking at every and any opportunity we can for strategic acquisitions like this one. This is one that we were really focused on because of the significance of it, and what it represents, its location and its impact.”

Department of Land Management Director Scott Hayashi estimated that rent for the units would likely be around $1,350 for the studios and $1,500 for the one-bedrooms.

Currently, the dorm rooms are about 300 square feet and do not have kitchens or refrigerators installed. However, a city spokesperson said the Department of Community Serv­ices will discuss with prospective contractors how the building will be reconfigured and whether the rooms will have kitchen appliances. They added that those decisions also will be influenced by the targeted population of the affordable units.

“(The rent) is going to be low, but it depends on what strategy — if it’s workforce housing, whether it’s seniors and such,” Community Services Director Anton Krucky said. “This area really lends itself for people to get on the bus lines, to walk down to the bridges, to go in to Waikiki to work. So we want to keep it low and really make it workable for people.”

The building is a few blocks away from McCully Shopping Center and near a bus stop. There is also parking available on the premises.

Hawaii Pacific University is leasing the building until May, and it currently houses about 200 students. The city likely will be unable to start renovations until after then, but expects to begin accepting applications for the units before it is completed.

HPU, however, hopes that the city will extend its lease on the property.

“We’re in discussions with the city. … Depending on how their construction timetables are and occupancy timetables are, our hope is that the university might still be able to have students in that location for at least an extension for a period of a year,” HPU Chief Marketing Communications Officer Jeffrey Rich told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“If we’re unable to do that, the university, as it always is, is actively searching for additional housing options for our students.”

The city has additional housing projects on the horizon as Krucky said he plans to put out another solicitation for affordable housing units this month using $8 million from its affordable housing fund and an additional $20 million of federal relief funds.

Blangiardi also gave an update on the status of Bill 1, which was meant to provide grant subsidies to qualifying affordable housing developments that keep their properties affordable for at least 15 years. It was one of the first measures he signed as mayor at the beginning of 2021.

“It’s taken us a couple of years to finally start to see the light of day. I think you’re gonna start to see some things really manifest come the new year,” he said. “Probably by December 7 all the applications will be in.”

So far, he said, there has been growing interest in the program, and there are about 18 to 20 projects in “the pipeline.”

“We had to work out a few things. We were caught up in the (Department of Planning and Permitting) thing ourselves in order to implement, and so we’re working through that, and we feel pretty good about this,” Blangiardi said. DPP has been short-staffed with a leadership change at the top, a notoriously long backlog of applications to process, and some former employees charged with bribery.

“There are probably 7,000 parcels of land in the urban core, which is why the bill was designed the way it was, appropriate for Bill 1,” Blangiardi said. “Probably half of those places have already been declared ghetto. … If we do this, you’ll see a lot of things come back to life because some of these places right now are not really that habitable, and that’s what we intend to do.”