Posted on: Thursday, October 7, 2004

EDITORIAL
Block J development should honor history

We were deeply disappointed when the city earlier this year decided to sell Block J, at the mauka entrance to downtown Honolulu, to the Pflueger car dealership company.

Our disappointment wasn't that the sale was to a car dealer rather than some other commercial entity. It was disappointment that, for short-term gain, the city forever gave up control of this key gateway property.

Two options died with the sale: The first could have been a landscaped urban park that would welcome visitors to downtown Honolulu.

The other option that appears to have largely died was to honor the original purpose of the city's condemnation of Block J: to provide affordable housing and opportunities to the folks who lived there in substandard, pre-war housing.

A few affordable-housing projects have gone in to the Kukui area, but other blocks were committed to luxury housing far beyond the means of those who were evicted.

Now Pflueger, along with a development group, proposes a car dealership topped with a 350-foot condominium tower with apartments averaging around $500,000. Some of the apartments will be in the high $200,000 range, with many obviously higher than the half-million-buck range.

That hardly reads as affordable housing.

Pflueger bought the parcel fair and square, and its plans appear to fit with current zoning. And in its early comments on its plans, the company appeared genuinely aware of the importance of a quality project on the site and its value as one of downtown Honolulu's most important gateways.

Our hope is that Pflueger will work with the city to complete a project that appears to welcome people as they enter Honolulu, rather than shutting them out with yet another maximum-height condo.

And with the city's help (perhaps in the form of tax breaks or subsidies), the developers should consider making more of the apartments available to moderate-income buyers.

That would honor original intentions and contribute to a vital and healthy mix of downtown residents