Here's a bit of good news in a new year, amid all the portents for continued economic decline: There's hope for progress in plans for the well-rounded redevelopment of Kaka'ako.

Specifically, Kamehameha Schools is positioned to press ahead with the long-stalled "life sciences" industrial complex adjacent to the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

That center would house laboratories that would work closely with the medical school and the Cancer Research Center nearby.

It's an integral part of creating a live-work-study-play community in Kaka'ako that state planners should help bring to fruition. It would represent significant progress for Kaka'ako, a long-underachieving stretch of real estate that is one of urban Honolulu's last sizeable oceanfront pearls.

The aim of realizing its enormous potential has been pursued through a program of upgrading its aging infrastructure, undertaken by the city and private developers.

Overseeing the transition has been the Hawai'i Community Development Authority. Over the past three decades, progress toward the goal — a broader range of projects that provide housing, employment, education and entertainment — hasn't always been straightforward. Development, affected by economic forces and the local market, rarely follows a straight path.

The life-sciences project was among the proposals that had been in limbo. In this case delay was due to prolonged discussions about whether the state would play a part in the leasing arrangements, and, ultimately, Kamehameha's decision to change development partners.

Now Kamehameha has hired Phase 3 Properties, a San Diego developer, for the planning of what is now called the Asia Pacific Research Center.

And it's gratifying to see the state no longer positioned as holder of the master lease; the state will struggle enough through the budgetary shortfall of the next few years.

Kamehameha deserves credit for stepping up to assume the risk that can come with leases to startup businesses such as the entrepreneurs Hawai'i hopes to attract.

The research center would be built on a 4.5-acre site makai of Ala Moana Boulevard that Kamehameha owns, designed with three-, four- and five-story laboratory towers. A link to more information is at www.phase3properties.com.

Kamehameha also has a separate residential/commercial mixed-use Kaiaulu 'o Kaka'ako development on the mauka side, now going through a master plan review (see www.hcdaweb.org for details on that).

The Asia Pacific Research Center would fit well with this larger effort to develop Kaka'ako. The state should support the timely review and approvals needed to bring it to completion.