WAILUKU, Maui — With the rapid and ongoing expansion of Wailuku's residential communities — and no supermarket in town — a proposed shopping center on urban-zoned land at the corner of Maui Lani Parkway and Ka'ahumanu Avenue seems to make sense.

What doesn't make sense, say residents of the adjacent Sandhills area, is putting an entrance to the 13-acre property on a road that serves as a main access to the quiet, older neighborhood. They say improvements to Kainani Street to benefit the Maui Lani Shopping Center would create unsafe conditions for motorists and pedestrians, and encourage cars to cut through Sandhills on narrow streets that lack sidewalks and shoulders and already are off-limits to heavy trucks.

"It seems a little crazy to me," said Nancy Halley, who has lived on Naniloa Drive for eight years.

The absence of a second entrance in addition to the main entrance off Maui Lani Parkway is likely a deal-breaker for Safeway, which has been in talks with developer HRT Ltd. to open a 55,000-square-foot store at the shopping center, said HRT representative Lloyd Sueda.

HRT is a nonprofit subsidiary of the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

Plans call for widening two-lane Kainani Street to four lanes to a point just west of the proposed shopping center driveway and providing turn lanes. It's a short distance from Ka'ahumanu Avenue that would require eastbound drivers turning right from the main road to immediately switch lanes on a sharp curve to make a left turn into the entrance.

There also are concerns that westbound drivers turning left from Ka'ahumanu onto Kainani would back up onto the main road.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.