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THE CONDOS ARE COMING!

New high-rise condos are shooting up all over town and there are more coming 

(Source: Honolulu Magazine May 2005 by A. Kam Napier).

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Condo developments now under way will add about 3,000 new apartments to the city. These buildings are better looking than previous generations of Honolulu high-rises, especially if your taste runs to glass. And they arrive at a time when Island demographic changes have yielded new buyers, from young leeward families tired of their commutes to empty-nest baby boomers looking to downsize out of single - family homes. Honolulu's appetite for new apartments has been steadily growing.

The product itself has changed, too. Even the mid-priced buildings offer amenities once reserved for the wealthy - designer kitchens, community DVD theaters, dog parks and more.

THE DEVELOPERS

Hokua, the $210 million luxury high-rise- going up next to the IBM Building by Ward Center come from Heyer & Associates LLC. Lanikea , in Waikiki , as well as the recently announced Malulani, come from Alexander & Baldwin. Ko'olani , another luxury high-rise now under construction near Ward Center began as a development from Nauru Phosphate Royalties Development ( Honolulu) Ilc. , which had build neighboring Nauru Tower, Hawiki Tower and 1133 Waimanu in the 1990s, on Kaka'ako land it purchased in 1984.

Crescent Heihts picked up the Ko'olani property in 2003 , paying NPRD an estimated $ 20 million for it. The Miami-based developer specializes in high-end condominiums in major cities around the country , having sold more then 20,000 units, for more then $3 billion, over the pass 30 years. Crescent Heihts also redeveloping the Ala Moana Hotel as condominiums.

Some developers are individual entrepreneurs . Moana Pacific, for example , is owned by Fred Chan, University of Hawaii engineering alum who made a fortune with Bay Area companies producing video chips for consumer electronics . He paid $26 million in 1998 for the 6 acres bounded by Kapi'olani, Pi'ikoi, Pensacola and Kamaile streets, where the two towers of Moana Pacific are now under construction .

Then there are local group. Downtown Affordable LLC is building 215 N, King St., near the Dole Cannery .

THE BUYERS

None of these developers would be in the business if there wasn't demand for apartments. Now , the annual number of resold apartments has dipped as low as 1,600 . In other words most apartments in town are long - term occupants. . Given the pent - up demand , it 's no surprise that Hokua, one of the first of this generation of condos to go on sale, was 90 percent sold out before the building even broke ground.

And more then 70 percent of buyers in Hokua already have a Honolulu address . A lot are from East Honolulu, single - family homeowners who are looking for the convenience of apartment living. Another contingent are second-home owners, who spend tree to six month out of the year living in Hawaii. Other buyers from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The purchasing requirements make it harder for the for the speculators to get in. These requirements include deposits, prequalification with the banks and the buyer having to actually close on the purchase before he or she can resale it. After all, banks require developers to pre-sell a certain percentage of units before they will finance construction. Owner-occupants are safer customers.

No doubt , some of the units in these new buildings will go right back on the market. Construction will be finished over the next couple of years. Suddenly, hundreds, if not thousands , of people who had reserved their condos with a deposit will need to close on those units - probably selling their existing homes to afford it .

CHANGING NEIGHBORHOODS

If these condos are changing Honolulu's housing , they are changing Honolulu itself. These is especially true for Kaka'ako , where we see the greatest concentration of buildings: Hokua and Ko'olani Join Nauru Tower and Hawaiki by the Ward Center, Moana Pacific nearby on Kapi'olani and 909 Kapi'olani , across from the Blaisdell Arena.

This is no accident . The sate administers Kaka'ako through the Hawai'i Community Development Authority (HCDA) as the "last major redevelopment opportunity in Urban Honolulu".

" We're seeing great momentum in Kaka'ako now," say HCDA executivedirectore Daniel Dinell, citing not only the condos , but the growth of Victoria Ward Center, the new UH Hohn A. Burns School of Medicine, pus extensive road and infrastacture work in the area, with more to come.

The development rules ensure that Kaka'ako will not become a mini-Manhattan of shoulder-to-shoulder high-rise. The plan call for slender towers planted on four- or five- story platforms which nearly fill their lots. In these land scaped platforms, people should be able to find street-level shopping and dining .

909 Kapi'olani, to be built on the corner of Ward Avenue and Kapi'olani Boulevard , will feature ground -floor business. There's a potential for heavy foot traffic from a nearby Blaisdell Center.

Waikiki developments rules call for redeveloped lots to keep a minimum of 50 percent open space , so the Watermark will look like a private, lushly landscape, 4 acre park with modern building on it . That along will change the dense character of the neighborhood. But unlike Kaka'ako buildings , the Watermark is going into an area zoned for residential only . It cannot have restaurants or shops on the ground floor, sealing it off as a private reserve.

The general size of the building is all set by land -use policies before any architect can fire up a CAD program. These policies limit how tall a building can be , how big a footprint it can have , how close it can come to the streets and how much usable floor space can be built. Working with these limits , developers and their architects then design the building from the inside out.

Liability cost have climbed. Facing ever steeper insurance premiums, architects and developers avoid design anything too unconventional. To prevent leaks (the biggest liability) , it 's easiest to enclosed the whole building . That is one of many reasons why we see so many new buildings clad entirely in glass. The head-to-toe sheath of glass is known as a curtain wall, because it doesn't support the building the building at all. Instead the building wears the glass like a curtain.

Glass curtain walls offer other advantages. Dramatic floor to ceiling views, for example.

Technologies and market forces give us the buildings we're now seeing. The handful of 1990s projects - Nauru Tower, Hawaiki, the Waikiki Landmark - hinted at the glass towers to come.

One thing has not changed about Honolulu high-rise , however . All are cast in reinforced concrete , whether you see it from the outside or not . Hawai's has its own quarries to generate the concrete and a labor force skilled at building with it. In many Mainland cities, such high-rise would be built on steel skeletons.

New high-rise condos are shooting up all over town and there are more coming  (Source: Honolulu Magazine May 2005 by A. Kam Napier).

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