EDITOR’S NOTE: The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is featuring each of the nine Skyline rail stations and surrounding communities stretching 11 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium. The series started Sunday and continues through Thursday. Passengers will begin riding Skyline on Friday.

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Perhaps the biggest public attraction along the city’s 11-mile initial operating rail segment is Oahu’s second-largest shopping mall, Pearlridge Center.

Yet riders of the Skyline train going to shop or work at the 1.1 million-square-foot mall won’t be exiting Kalauao station near the doors of Macy’s or the old Sears location, or any other stores.

The closest station exit is nestled up against a low-rise condominium and the parking deck of a Territorial Savings Bank building separated from the mall by Kaonohi Street.

Most of Pearlridge Center, which covers 45 acres, is a five- to 10-minute walk from the station along Kamehameha Highway and Kaonohi.

Previously, city planners envisioned a pedestrian bridge making a convenient connection between the station and the adjacent retail center, but this feature got eliminated as station designs advanced.

The mall is expected to support rail ridership to some degree, providing a new transportation option for shoppers and workers.

David Cianelli, the mall’s general manager, is not forecasting any amount of symbiotic benefits but said tenants are generally optimistic about rail positively affecting business with higher foot traffic.

“On the eve of the opening of the rail line, we are very hopeful about its positive impacts for our customers, tenants and the hundreds and hundreds of people who work at Pearlridge Center,” he said in a statement. “We feel, like the rest of the community, that the multi-modal transportation options that will be available with rail are going to be great because it will give people more choices.”

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation hasn’t estimated station use before the full 19-station line opens. The agency’s most recent estimate made in 2021 projected the Kalauao station would have 6,290 average daily passenger boardings, or third most, in 2030, which was when the full line was expected to open before getting pushed back to 2031.

Much of this relatively high projected use is expected from TheBus riders transferring to and from rail at the station, along with a rise in the nearby population and workforce produced by dense residential and commercial property development plans within a half-mile of the station.

Development plans near the station include a long-stalled project with 1,500 homes, a hotel and retail space at the former Kamehameha Drive-In theater site, another possibly 1,500 homes on nearby land owned by Kamehameha Schools, and the addition of housing, more retail and perhaps a hotel at Pearlridge.

None of these major redevelopment projects have publicly forecast start dates.

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As for improved bus service, the city in conjunction with the initial segment of rail operations starting Friday plans a new TheBus route running from the Kalauao and Halawa rail stations to Ala Moana Center with stops along the way at places including Middle Street, Chinatown and downtown Honolulu.

A bus depot adjacent to the makai side of Kalauao station is planned as a future addition to accommodate six buses at the same time with covered passenger-waiting areas and benches. When service begins, the station will include a temporary park-and-ride lot with 16 stalls.

Chastity Ferrer, who was shopping at Pearlridge earlier this month, said it would be hard for her to make use of rail because she lives in Hawaii Kai.

“I wish I could,” she said, noting that about eight years ago she lived in Waipahu and could have envisioned riding the system regularly.

HART expects to open two more segments of rail over the next several years, with four stations between Pearl Harbor and Middle Street in 2025, followed by six stations from Kalihi to Kakaako in 2031.

During this time, considerable transit-oriented development could arise within a half-mile, or 10-minute walk, of the Kalauao station that increases rail use.

City planners estimate that 3,400 homes can be developed around Kalauao station, adding 8,874 more residents based on an average household size of 2.61 people.

The biggest and most detailed project planned for the area had 1,500 homes, a 150-room hotel and 143,000 square feet of retail space on 14 acres once home to the Kam Drive-In.

However, this project by California-based Robertson Properties Group that was dubbed Live Work Play ‘Aiea never broke ground in 2014 as forecast. Local developer Stanford Carr several years ago arranged to take over and revamp the project into one with 1,401 homes, a grocery store and a few other retailers, but backed out in 2022 because of more risky economic and financing outlooks.

Another major landowner in the area, Kamehameha Schools, owns 17.5 acres makai of Pearlridge with tenant ground leases expiring over the next five to 10 years. The trust preliminarily envisioned 1,200 to 1,500 homes and 50,000 to 60,000 square feet of commercial/retail space on the property, though more evaluation is pending.

The owner of Pearlridge, Washington Prime Group, indicated in 2019 that it was exploring redevelopment at parts of the mall, with more retail as well as potential high-rise residential and hotel use, though no updated plans or potential timetable have been shared.

Under enhanced city zoning for land near the station, building height limits for some mauka portions of mall property rise as high as 350 feet, up from 60 feet, while makai portions of the mall remain at 60 feet.

Any future redevelopment at Pearlridge, Cianelli said, would be independent of city rail line phases opening. He also said extending the mall’s monorail, which transports riders between the mauka and makai phases of the shopping center, to the city rail station is not under consideration.

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• Click here to view previous rail coverage.

Kalauao (The multitude of clouds). Kalauao is an ahupua‘a with the famed wahi pana, Kuki‘iahu. Kuki‘iahu was once the house site of Kalaimanuia, a chiefess of Oahu who had resided there most of her life. This is also the site of a ba le fought in late 1794 between the warriors of Ka‘eokulani and Kalanikupule in which Ka‘eokulani and his followers lost their lives.