Home builders busy in Hawai'i Kai

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau

HAWAI'I KAI — Dust screens are going up throughout the community, an indication that the new homes talked about for months are coming — and soon.

The newest screen is being erected around the peninsula property — the last big chunk of vacant land in the community.

More than 600 houses, townhomes and condominiums will be built on the property, which just a year ago was slated for a Home Depot store.

For several months Schuler Homes has been working on its development, Kai Nui, across from Safeway on Keahole Street, with the first home to be completed in June.

And in Kalama Valley, by the mostly vacant shopping center, is another Schuler Homes development, Kalama Ku'u.

Crews have begun to prepare the land for 64 townhomes and 17 single-family homes.

Developer Stanford Carr, SCD International president, said the earth-moving equipment around the peninsula is there to dig the trenches to build the dust screens.

No home construction can occur, however, until the developer obtains his grading and building permits.

"As soon as we get that, it will be 'all systems go,'" Carr said. "We'll start with the models for the single-family homes."

The 42-acre property is bordered by Wailua Street and Lunalilo Home Road.

Shaped in a giant U, much of the property adjoins the privately owned Hawai'i Kai Marina. Existing zoning calls for condominiums and townhomes or single-family homes.

Home Depot had struck a deal with landowner Kamehameha Schools to build a store and homes on the property.

But community residents, with the support of Mayor Jeremy Harris, objected and the project never got out of the planning stage.

Residents of the neighboring Esplanade Apartments generally support the residential development, said Don Robinson, president of the Esplanade Apartment Owners Association.

Right now, with the preparation work going on, "it's a little dusty and a little noisy," Robinson said. "That's a part of the construction. The residents are far more supportive of this than a Home Depot."