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The first structure of a low-income rental housing complex in Ewa Beach initiated more than five years ago has begun to rise on a long-ignored piece of city land.
About 40 construction workers took a break from building the 127-unit project Wednesday to participate in a ceremony blessing the effort to produce Kaleima'o Village, which at one time was expected to break ground in 2022.
"It's been a long journey," said Stanford Carr, a local developer who partnered with California-based Standard Communities to produce the project where monthly rent including utility expense is expected to range from $798 for one-bedroom apartments to $2,400 for three-bedroom units serving households earning no more than 60% of the median income on Oahu.
Mike Formby, managing director of the City and County of Honolulu, described the commencement of construction as "phenomenal" given that more than five years went by since the Carr partnership, Komohale West Loch LLC, was selected by the city through competitive bidding to take on the project under a 75-year land lease for $1 a year.
"Time is money," Formby said, congratulating Carr and his partners for being able to cope with rising costs over several years. "You can't build it at the price point that you planned it when you bid on it, and that's the truth."
The development cost for Kaleima'o Village, which is to include seven three-story residential buildings centered around a single-level community center, is $62.4 million, up from an estimate of $23.5 million in 2022.
Much of the project's long development timetable is attributable to studies required for an environmental assessment that was completed in 2022. It also took time to obtain land-use approvals, and to arrange multiple layers of financing mainly through the city and state.
For most of the 20th century, the land was planted in sugarcane by Ewa Plantation Co. and later by Oahu Sugar Co. until the 1980s, when the property was sold to the city, which was turning a vast amount of former sugarcane fields and old plantation village housing in the area into the master-planned community of Ewa Villages.
However, the site now being developed as Kaleima'o Village, which is on the mauka-Diamond Head corner of Fort Weaver and Renton roads, was left vacant for more than three decades even though an adjacent parcel also owned by the city was developed in the early 1990s as a 150-unit affordable rental subdivision for seniors called West Loch Elderly Village.
In 2019, during the administration of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, affordable-housing development proposals were solicited for the empty 3.7-acre site, and the joint venture led by Carr was selected.
Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who took office in 2021, worked to pull the project forward, in part by reestablishing a city bond program, which had been inactive for 23 years, to help finance low-income housing projects.
Earlier this year, the Honolulu City Council unanimously authorized $30.4 million in tax-exempt bonds to support the project. The developer also is receiving state and federal tax credits along with a $14.6 million low-interest loan through the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp.
Scott Glenn, a special housing advisor to Gov. Josh Green, called Kaleima'o Village an example of how the state, city and private sector can produce affordable housing that is in great need throughout Hawaii.
"We need more communities like this," Glenn said during the ceremony.
Apartments in Kaleima'o Village will be reserved for households earning no more than 60% of Oahu's median, which equates to about $60,000 a year for a single person and about $90,000 for a family of four. Seven of the 127 units will be reserved for households earning no more than half as much.
Carr said he expects some future tenants will be able to save money, grow their income and eventually become first-time homebuyers in other local communities.
One of two Carr sons, who is also named Stanford and is project manager for Kaleima'o Village, called the project a "full circle moment" for the family given that his maternal grandmother was raised on a sugarcane plantation in Ewa Beach. Sandra Tyau, 82, attended Wednesday's ceremony.
Completion of Kaleima'o Village, which is to be managed by Hawaii Affordable Properties, is expected in phases with an initial building in April and the last building done by the end of 2026.