Ample parking planned in Kahala

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer

KAHALA — The developers of the senior center at Star of the Sea plan to build more than the required amount of parking for residents, employees, the church and the school to use to reduce the impact on the surrounding area and alleviate neighbors' concerns.

Chuck Swanson, Kahala Senior Living Community Inc. chairman, has been working for months with the community, going to neighborhood board meetings and talking with residents of Malia Street and Halekoa Avenue to ensure that the 251-unit independent living center, 62 skilled-nursing units and 60 assisted-living units on 7.9 acres of the church grounds won't adversely affect the community.

The project will have 24 parking spaces above ground and 485 below ground to be shared among the church, school and senior center. By city code, the facility is required to build only 323, Swanson said.

"We think the traffic pattern we've created will keep the traffic off the street," Swanson said at a recent Wai'alae Kahala Neighborhood Board meeting. "We are planning an overage of parking. We've worked to keep everyone off the street."

Malia Street is a community besieged by Sunday church traffic, weekday school traffic and overflow Kalaniana'ole Highway traffic, residents say.

Residents here want to make sure they don't feel like they're living in a business district, said Gerri Digmon, a member of the board.

To ensure that employees park in the underground parking structure, the senior center has agreed to provide free parking. That was a relief to the community, which has often complained about employees of the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii crowding the streets of Kahala because they don't want to pay for parking at the hotel.

"This is supposed to be a residential area," Digmon said. "The project will affect everyone in the area. It's like second-hand smoke. You are impacting a community that uses our community as a bypass road to gridlock on Kalaniana'ole Highway."

Units at the Star of the Sea senior center are selling for up to $625,000 each. The project was first proposed in 1989 when the not-for-profit agency operated as Episcopal Homes of Hawaii. But the project stalled in 1994 after $12.4 million had been spent in planning and marketing.

The project has all its state permits and is waiting to reach the 70 percent sold mark before it can begin selling bonds that will finance the construction.

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.