Stanford Carr Development is slated to start construction on its Keauhou Lane project in Kakaako in late March or early April of 2015.
The project includes 388 residential units in a 400-foot high-rise tower and 35 townhouse units in a 42-foot mid-rise tower. Alakea Design Group and Richard Matsunaga & Associates are the architects and Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. Inc. is the general contractor.
In an exclusive interview with PBN this week, Stanford Carr, president and founder of the Hawaii-based firm that bears his name, talked about how the transformation of Kakaako is going, as well as updates on his projects across the state.
A Keauhou Lane sales office opened recently in a former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development office at Waterfront Plaza.
“We’re just giving the consumer options,” Carr said of his project. “The people who come in are local families, couples. There must have been 40 people at one time that I’ve seen. It’s exciting and there’s lots of energy.”
Sales of Keauhou Lane, which will be near a Honolulu rail transit station, are expected to begin in early January.
“We’re closing on our construction loan [soon], and we’re already going for [building] permits,” Carr said.
The block at 500 South St. and 500 Keawe St. includes a project by Oregon-based developer Gerding Edlen on behalf of landowner Kamehameha Schools. That project includes 209 residential units in a 65-foot mid-rise building and 39,145 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
“There’s already pent-up demand from the last four years, starting in 2008,” Carr said of the housing market in Hawaii. “What The Howard Hughes Corp. is offering satisfies a sector, what [Alexander & Baldwin Inc.], we and Marshall Hung are offering also satisfies a sector of the market.
“Hawaii’s got a bright future ahead of itself,” Carr said. “We have seen the cycles of the last 30-plus years. History will repeat itself. There’s a lot more confidence [these days].”
The entire development will be located on the site of a surface parking lot adjacent to Carr’s Halekauwila rental project and bounded by Halekauwila, Pohukaina, South and Keawe streets.
Combined, the projects will have about 50,000 square feet of recreational space and more than 65,000 square feet of open space.
Carr’s portion will take up about 93,000 square feet of “Block A” of Kamehameha Schools’ “Our Kakaako” master plan, which includes 29 acres on nine city blocks, seven residential towers that include 2,750 units, and 300,000 square feet of commercial space.
Gerding Edlen’s portion includes 69,387 square feet of property with live-work units, rental apartments and ground-floor commercial space. The six-story building will have a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.
Duane Shimogawa Reporter – Pacific Business News