New road paves way for rise of Kaka'ako
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Officials plan to complete more than $50 million in Kaka'ako roadway improvements over the next three years, literally paving the way for long-anticipated economic development in the area.
The opening next month of Ilalo Street, the first major new road to be built in urban Honolulu in decades, is the biggest of the projects. Running from Ward Avenue to South Street, the four-lane boulevard with a tree-lined median and wide sidewalks, cost more than $28 million.
Other work includes extending and widening Queen Street to create a new link between Ala Moana and Victoria Ward retail centers, building two new parks and upgrading small streets leading to Kaka'ako Waterfront Park, where planners hope to build an aquarium, amphitheater and other attractions. The city also has revised its ambitious Bus Rapid Transit plan to include two routes through Kaka'ako.
"It's all coming together, the Kaka'ako vision where people can live, work and shop in a place with an urban village feel," said John Breinich, chairman of the Ala Moana-Kaka'ako Neighborhood Board.
All the improvements are designed to spur new development and accommodate growth that has occurred in the area between Ala Moana Center and downtown.
"There's an awful lot of developments coming on line, and moving the traffic into the area and through it has been a top priority," Breinich said. The changes will help residents, employees and customers get into and out of the area quickly, and provide others with a way to pass through the new neighborhoods with ease, he said.
Ilalo Road will give thousands of people daily access to a new University of Hawai'i medical school, set to open in 2005, and other commercial enterprises planned for the area, for decades a fly-infested landfill and home to small businesses and warehouses.
"The infrastructure had to be there before the developers started calling," said Jan Yokota, executive director of the Hawai'i Community Development Authority, the independent agency which controls development in Kaka'ako. "The medical school would never have come into existence without the completion of Ilalo Street."
The extension of Queen Street will provide a convenient alternative for people who want to walk or drive between Ala Moana Center and Victoria Ward Centers, which are owned by the same company, General Growth Properties.
Queen Street now ends at Kamake'e Street, forcing drivers going between the two shopping centers to use either Kapi'olani or Ala Moana boulevards or slip through a rabbit warren of small, bumpy neighborhood streets.
"When the work is done, people will have a third major way to pass through the center of Kaka'ako," Breinich said. "Queen will be a good route to get people off Ala Moana and Kapi'olani."
The planned improvements include a new 76-foot right-of-way and two new parks, totaling 109,000 square feet, along the extension from Kamake'e and Waimanu Streets. HCDA hopes to have work on the extension and parks, totaling about $7.5 million, finished by July 2004. The parks are meant to encourage more pedestrian traffic in the area, Yokota said.
"The extension has the potential to change the whole nature of the Victoria Ward part of Kaka'ako," much the same way straightening a short stretch of Kamake'e Street near Ala Moana helped transform the area in front of the new Ward Entertainment complex, Yokota said.
"Opening a safe, pleasant link between Ala Moana and Victoria Ward could really reshape the way people think about the whole area," she said. "It could also change the way developers feel about building there."
A final phase of improvements call for widening and improving utilities on Queen Street between Ward Avenue and Kamake'e Street. That $6.5 million project is scheduled for competition in 2006.
Less dramatic, but equally important to the HCDA's plans for development are two more projects at either end of Kaka'ako where it meets the waterfront.
• One project calls for $6.5 million in improvements to streets leading from Ala Moana to the waterfront at the diamondhead end of Kaka'ako Waterfront Park, providing a safer, more convenient access to the existing Children's Discovery Center and the planned attractions.
• Another $4.8 million project would move a cargo container yard and realign part of Forrest Avenue at the 'ewa end of the park to open up more development property, including a cancer research center.
Yokota said the agency plans to formally open Ilalo Street to traffic sometime in February. Workers are putting final touches on the roadway and landscaping, which includes dozens of monkey pod trees and hundreds of yellow hibiscus plants.
Although the new street parallels the heavily used Ala Moana and Kapi'olani thoroughfares, it was not built to be used as an alternative thoroughfare, she said. Instead, it has been designed with numerous stop signs to slow traffic through the park area.
Last year, city officials also revised its plans for the Bus Rapid Transit system that is scheduled to come on line in 2005.
Responding to the new developments in the area, the city created a second Kaka'ako makai route that will take buses from Aloha Tower to Ilalo Street and then head for Waikiki. The second route will use Halekauwila and Pohukaina streets to pass through the mauka portions of Kaka'ako.
Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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