Loft-style condo units set for Waikiki
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
With home builders rushing to cash in on Hawai'i's exceptionally strong residential real estate market, another developer has unveiled plans to increase the choices with a bit of high-end living in a low-rise.
Collaborative Seven LLC
Don Huang, principal of local architectural firm Collaborative Seven LLC, plans a $15 million, six-story Waikiki condominium with prices ranging from $580,000 to around $700,000 for loft-style units.
Artist's rendering of Loft @ Waikiki, a 36-unit condominium with two levels of parking.
Huang, who formed Urban Loft Development to build the 36-unit project at 427 Launiu St., plans to begin taking sales reservations for 18 units on Sunday, followed by construction in March provided his purchase of the land, which is in escrow, is completed in February.
The project is one of several condos either planned or under construction in Honolulu, including a growing number in Waikiki where hotel owners have been converting units for sale to residents.
Named Loft @ Waikiki, the Huang project is not big compared with the nearby 100-unit Lanikea high-rise under construction or the recently completed conversion of the former Ohana Hobron Hotel into The Windsor, a 181-unit condo. But Huang hopes the Loft will stand out.
With ceiling heights of 12 feet to 18 feet and the absence of some traditional interior walls, units were designed to resemble loft space, though the roughly 1,100-square-foot units with two bedrooms and two bathrooms do have partitions and interior finishes.
Other condos on the market include two Kaka'ako high-rises under construction — Hokua, where unit sales average about $1 million, and Ko'olani, where units began selling last week starting at $585,000. The 700-unit twin-tower Moana Pacific and the 230-unit Emerald Tower are in the planning phase and are also in Kaka'ako.
Huang started Collaborative Seven in the early 1980s in Honolulu and has been involved with high-end luxury residences in California and Hawai'i. He also had a role in converting the former Ohana Hobron hotel and designing retail stores, nightclubs and restaurants.
Huang arranged to buy the 30,000-square-foot site mauka of Kuhio Avenue behind upscale shops Tiffany & Co., Gucci and others at 2100 Kalakaua from landowner Brian Sakamaki.
Sakamaki bought the property for $2.4 million in June from Magoon Brothers Ltd., which had been leasing part of the site to the Waikiki Health Center. The center moved services to other locations.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
