325-foot height exemption sought
KRYSTLE MARCELLUS / FEB. 2016
The Ritz-Carlton Residences construction site in Waikiki is adjacent to Fort DeRussy Park, pictured behind. The proposed Park Kalia-Waikiki tower, pictured below, would replace the former Kyo-ya restaurant.
RENDERING COURTESY DTL HAWAII.
A proposal by Best Hospitality LLC to build a 350-foot tower on a Waikiki site with a 25-foot height limit will have to complete a more arduous round of city vetting.
The subsidiary of Tokyo-based Tsukada Global Holdings plans to construct a 26-story, 350-foot-high condo-hotel called Park Kalia-Waikiki with up to 170 units, a restaurant, a wedding chapel, recreational facilities and a parking structure. It plans to demolish the former two-story Kyo-ya restaurant and parking structure to build on the Kalakaua Avenue site, adjacent to the Luana Waikiki condo-hotel and Fort DeRussy Park.
Developers already have submitted an environmental assessment for the project, which cannot be built without getting approval from the city for a 325-foot height exemption. However, after reviewing the documents, the city Department of Planning and Permitting has ruled that the developer must complete a more rigorous environmental impact statement, which reopens the controversial project to scrutiny.
“This proposal is likely to set a precedent for other property owners and developers in the surrounding area to seek similar building height increases,” said Planning and Permitting Director George Atta in a May 31 letter to Best Hospitality. “Due to its close proximity to Fort DeRussy, which has a height limit of 25 feet, the proposal will have a significant visual impact on this public facility and the last major open space in Waikiki. As such, the proposal is likely to have a significant effect on the environment.”
Project consultant Keith Kurahashi, president of Kusao &Kurahashi Inc., said the company expects to submit its draft EIS in about a month. Once the department accepts the new report, he said there will be more public review. “There’ll be a 45-day comment period,” he said. “Then we’ll prepare the final report.”
The firm cannot pursue its Waikiki Special District permit until the city department accepts a final EIS, Kurahashi said. “This will probably push the project back by about six months,” he said.
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Waikiki Neighborhood Board Chairman Bob Finley said he’s thankful that the city required a more rigorous vetting for the project. In September the board voted 15-0 to oppose the project, which they said violated Land Use Ordinance zoning regulations and the Waikiki Special District design criteria.
“The park view on entry to Waikiki is a major part of the Waikiki experience, and adding another tower to the property will not enhance our experience,” Finley said. “While we support the (visitor) industry, we also need to protect our neighborhood from major projects that simply are moneymakers for the developers.”
The developer said it revised the project’s design and approach in late 2015 after engaging WCIT Architecture. Efforts to present the new design to the Waikiki Neighborhood Board have been rebuffed, said Kirra Downing, a spokeswoman for the developer.
“Park Kalia Waikiki has, and will continue to, engage in a robust community outreach effort to express the project’s merits and to understand and look to address comments from the community,” Downing said.
Neighborhood board member Jeff Merz, who is an urban planner, said the board is not interested in seeing the new design because the company still plans to request a substantial height variance.
However, the Waikiki Improvement Association board has approved the project. “The basic feeling is that we need to increase (hotel) capacity, and the only way to do that is to go up,” said Rick Egged, the association’s president.
Egged said the developer also makes a convincing case for revisiting the height limit for the site, which is surrounded by much larger developments like the Trump International Hotel Waikiki and the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Waikiki Beach. “There’s some ambiguity,” he said.
But Finley said the city has consistently upheld the parcel’s height limit, which dropped to 25 feet from 300 feet in 1976. “It was re-acknowledged in zoning code as 25 feet as recently as 2011,” he said.
Despite the property’s limitations, the owners paid a premium. According to city tax records, the developer paid $30.5 million for the parcels in 2015, although the total assessed value is just over $6 million. Waikiki-based real estate analyst Stephany Sofos said the purchase price indicates owner confidence.
“No one would have been crazy enough to pay about $560 a square foot for non-oceanfront property if they thought they could only build two floors,” Sofos said.
The company is arguing that it needs to build vertically to achieve economic success.
The firm and its supporters say the project will help increase the number of Waikiki hotel rooms, create jobs and increase tax collections. The company said it also expands public open space by creating a new park in Waikiki that “significantly improves visual and physical connectivity to the neighboring King Kalakaua and Fort DeRussy parks.”
Sofos said such run-of-the-mill benefits don’t warrant compromising the integrity of zoning and land use policies. “Why have regulations if we are not going to follow them? When does it end? What’s to keep them from developing Diamond Head?”
32 responses to “325-foot height exemption sought”
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This is a direct result of the constant exemptions granted, and it is crazy.
Agree. I can’t recall any waivers not being granted. While developers must jump through some hoops to get their way, they eventually do.
“325-foot height exemption sought”
Typo in the headline. Should read….
“325-foot height exemption “b”ought”
BRAVO! Amazing a company will KNOWINGLY buy a property with a 25 foot height limit with plans for exceeding it. The saying “money talks…….blah, blah walks” is so true. Aloha my Hawaii.
Agree! Sadly though I think the developer will eventually get what it wants since the city has no balls to uphold the building code and eventually give in to the developers. This makes me sick.
Developers always get what they want these days. Building codes and regs don’t apply to them. As long as they put the envelope in the right pockets. Reflective glass & turning the building to profit from more ocean view units fatten the envelope.
The Elected Ruling Elite, must stop covering Hawaii, completely in concrete.
There was once a time, in the late 1960s, when the building codes set an uncomfortable construction standard.
Variances demonstrated to everyone, that the original building codes have no meaning.
Maybe Hawaii is destined to be completely covered in concrete and owned by everyone in the world.
Hawaii will always have a housing & homeless problem. It first started in Hawaii in 1848 and we are now a homeless dumping ground from the mainland USA.
All of the above mentioned, are interrelated.
It will be granted. The little envelopes have been passed out.
Filled with Zippy’s and L&L coupons for free food. How cheaply our incompetent elected bureaucrats can be bought. Lapdogs to anyone for $1.
Exactly how Trump and his army of lawyers work; use money and courts to achieve your goals.
Threaten to sue for $$$$ and everything will fall in place.
Bribery and Breaking laws used to be done in smoke filled back alleys now there is enough corruption that it is now done in broadlight. Stop the selling off of what used to Beautiful Paradise.
Who wins and who loses? Is it fair to all concerned? Acts, laws, ordinances, rules, are meaningless unless that are enforced with consistency.
If they start building more high rises bordering Fort DeRussy, won’t they block the sun, creating a shadow which will kill sections of the park’s grass, plants, and trees?
It’s the end of the cold war. Peace has broken out. We no longer need Fort Derussey to secure Honolulu from the Russians. It’s probably the same situation with the golf course in Fort Shafter.
This land should be returned to the state for our own use.
“The firm and its supporters say the project will help increase the number of Waikiki hotel rooms, create jobs and increase tax collections.” OH! They used the magic words! There’s no way they’ll be turned down, now.
Yes, another high rise. I may still have a job in two years when they start construction. After that just need one more, then I can retire and “Gone to Maui”.
What part of height limit is unclear? Just say NO!
I notice that the rendering shown as image 2/2 is missing a number of high rise towers. Where is 4 Paddlers, 2211 Ala Wai. Hopefully our city officials reject this request for exemption. Their purchase price alone, shows blatant disregard for our zoning regulations.
Developer provided the SA with their drawings. Naturally it was “Adjusted” to show their building in not an issue.
How do I somehow feel that the waiver will get approval…..Hmmmmm….($$$$$$$)
Where’s the water coming from, the ocean?
Good decision.
Why is Fort DeRussy still I n Waikiki? Twenty-Five foot building limits seems out of place with giants nearby. Send the Army elsewhere. Tourism trumps the Army in Waikiki.
Build to 700 feet…..we need the tax revenue.
Uphold and enforce the 25-foot height limit, no exception, no variance, and no exemption. The developers had full knowledge and disclosure that the land parcel has a height restriction of 25-feet, in effect for 40+ years and reaffirmed within the last five years from buy understanding. Watch these names:
Best Hospitality LLC, subsidiary of Tokyo-based Tsukada Global Holdings, Project consultant Keith Kurahashi, president of Kusao &Kurahashi Inc. Kirra Downing, a spokeswoman for the developer.
“The company is arguing that it needs to build vertically to achieve economic success.” Great – build to 25 feet – that’s the zoning you bought into, developers.
Exemption granted just leave your check to caldwell on your way out
If the common citizen, making an improvement to their single family dwelling makes a slight error and goes one or two feet off, they can expect the full force of government to descend on them with fines and a probable demand to either saw off the one or two feet (which of course, you need to buy another permit for said de-construction) or take the entire thing down.
Big developers, not so much.
NO!
Waikiki is becoming a vertical slum.
The Democrat who control Hawaii government most likely will grant the developer to place more cement on the island of Oahu that’s losing its Hawaiian island looks. More huge condos for wealthy mainlanders while the locals looking for affordable housing is sucking wind.
A farce in the building code for high-rises if it is constantly/consistently changed/granted. Set a reasonable/realistic height limitation code and stick with it. Voters are fed-up each time a request is submitted, it is granted. The voters feel cheated and accuse the city fathers/ department heads as Czars that can be bought easily since the requests are consistently granted?
I am sure that the brown envelopes of love have gone out to the right people. Height restrictions and other restrictions which can be waived are great for those in power
who say yeah or nay on these kinds of development as long as they get to “wet their beaks”. This kind of system makes payoffs as part of the accepted process.