KAPOLEI —Contractors working on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands new headquarters are rushing to get the building done in time for a March 26 blessing designed to coincide with the birthday of Prince Jonah Kuhio, the father of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.

DHHL workers won't actually move into Hale Kalaniana'ole until about mid-April. But when they do, the department will become the first state agency to move its headquarters to Kapolei, O'ahu's designated Second City.

DHHL's mission is to develop and deliver homes to Native Hawaiians.

The two-story, 50,000-square-foot building lies near the eastern edge of Kapolei, near the western border of 'Ewa Villages. It sits across Kapolei Parkway from Kapolei Middle School and the upcoming Ka Makana Alii shopping complex, expected to be one of the state's largest shopping centers.

DHHL Director Micah Kane said the decision was made to relocate from the Downtown Honolulu Alakea Street space it leases because many of the agency's constituents live in the 'Ewa-Wai'anae region. And once DHHL completes the last of about 2,050 homes in Kapolei in the next decade or so, it will constitute the largest grouping of DHHL offerings in the state, Kane said.

"The whole purpose for being out here is accessibility to our beneficiaries," he said.

The headquarters property is just makai of the 400-home East Kapolei I subdivision.

"We wanted the building to be one that was like a campus-like setting that could fit in a residential community," Kane said. "It's a rather large building for something you want to place in a residential-type area."

A separate building just outside the headquarters will house the training center for DHHL's Home Ownership Assistance Program.

The Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs is expected to build its headquarters on a site across the parking lot.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.