It started with a Boys & Girls Club several years ago. Recently, affordable rental housing was added. Next year the first piece of a retail center could be built, followed by a community services and education complex.

These projects — planned for nearly two decades in Nanakuli — are helping crystallize a community vision to create a piko, or central gathering place, for residents in a region of Oahu often neglected by public improvement work.

For much of the last half-century, the site of this emerging community gathering place fronting Farrington Highway sat largely unused at the doorstep of about 1,000 Hawaiian homesteads, a remnant of a former 30-acre military recreation area known as Camp Andrews that the federal government turned over to the state and city in 1952.

Homesteaders, who represent about 60 percent of Nanakuli’s population, took the initiative about two decades ago to make use of roughly 14 acres owned by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, starting with a survey about what residents felt their community needed most.

Kamaki Kanahele, Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Community Association president, said it feels good to realize a major portion of what has been a large, long and daunting community effort that endured a few big changes and some controversy.

"It was a huge challenge," he said. "We decided we would take on that challenge."

The challenge grew out of the survey, with several top responses becoming pieces of what was initially envisioned to be a $44 million project called Nanakuli Village Center.

Building the Village Center has been daunting because the community association had little experience and knowledge in permitting, leasing, financing and other aspects of large-scale commercial development.

"We were so green," Kanahele recalled. "We had to learn all that from scratch."

Initially the homestead association vision called for a community center, a Boys & Girls Club and a retail complex topped with rental apartments for Native Hawaiian kupuna, or seniors. An international surfing Hall of Fame museum designed by legendary surfers Buffalo Keaulana and George Downing also became part of the plan.

Under the plan, the homestead association would own the Village Center on land leased from DHHL, and commercial portions of the project would generate income for both entities.

The association obtained DHHL permission to use the land in 2002 and enlisted a nonprofit developer to carry out the work.

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB

A community center with a preschool, meeting rooms and a commercial kitchen was to be the first phase costing an estimated $12 million, according to a 2006 environmental assessment.

That year, state and city government leaders participated in a ceremonial groundbreaking. Actual construction, however, got deferred because of difficulty raising money.

Three years later enough money had been cobbled together to build a different part of the project, a National Football League Youth Education Town center managed by the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii.

The $5.4 million club opened in 2009 on 1.6 acres of DHHL land next to Nanaikapono Elementary School, built in 2004 by the state on another part of the former Camp Andrews site.

The club, which includes a computer and technology lab, a multimedia studio, an arts and crafts room, a library, an outdoor amphitheater and a multipurpose room, was financed with $1 million from the NFL, corporate foundation contributions and about $3.3 million in federal and state grants.

AFFORDABLE RENTALS

Meanwhile, other Village Center phases were revised by splitting the retail and rental housing into separate pieces slated to start construction in 2010, according to a DHHL presentation in 2009.

The apartment project called Hale Makana ‘o Nanakuli initially was envisioned as affordable rentals for Hawaiian kupuna with very low incomes, including some who have waited decades for housing developed by DHHL.

However, financing challenges for the $15 million project led the nonprofit developer, the Hawaiian Community Development Board, to tap federal rental assistance and tax credits that precluded reserving the homes for only Hawaiians even though the homes would be on DHHL land.

This change created an uproar among some homesteaders. About 200 people signed a petition against Hale Makana, said Kanahele, who faced criticism at community meetings.

Hale Makana was completed late last year with 48 units and is fully occupied with households earning no more than 40 percent of Honolulu’s median income. Most tenants are Hawaiian and from Nanakuli, including some who had been homeless and others who lived in overcrowded homes, according to the developer.

Kanahele said there are even some Hale Makana tenants who previously thought the compromise to get financing was wrong.

Monthly rent ranges from $1,361 for a one-bedroom unit to $2,003 for a three-bedroom unit, though federal rental assistance means that the average tenant pays only about $375.

Kali Watson, president and CEO of Hawaiian Community Development and a former DHHL director, called Hale Makana a shining example of a private-public partnership providing affordable housing in an area with dire need.

"It takes a community with the help of many partners to make such a challenging project like this a reality," he said.

RETAIL CENTER

Next in line for development is a $20 million retail portion of the Village Center where Longs Drugs has committed to build a stand-alone store anchoring several adjacent smaller retail spaces developed by Hawaiian Community Development.

Watson said he hopes construction will commence early next year.

One aspect of the retail complex will be providing space for Hawaiian-owned businesses that Kanahele said could include sellers of art, lei and other items.

Another major potential user is Liberty Dialysis Hawaii LLC, which Watson said is negotiating to lease about half the space in the planned center and would be an important service provider for the community.

The other two phases of Village Center were to be the surf museum and a community center named after the West Oahu teacher and Hawaiian health and culture advocate Agnes "Auntie Aggie" Kalanihookaha Cope.

The surf museum concept was replaced with a plan for a satellite health clinic by Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. Watson said the clinic will provide a needed service, while the museum would have been financially difficult to build and operate.

COMMUNITY CENTER

Kamehameha Schools stepped in to develop the community center previously tripped up by financing difficulties, and received approval in March from DHHL to negotiate its own lease for the site.

Hawaiian Community Development anticipated that the revised learning center would be a $20 million, two-story complex with classrooms, a large banquet hall and a kitchen for use by a variety of educational, cultural and arts organizations.

Kamehameha Schools spokesman Kekoa Paulsen said what programs and providers will be part of what the trust calls a community learning center has yet to be determined and will involve discussions with area residents.

Paulsen said planning and design work is expected to start in the coming months.

"We should have a clearer picture of what the Community Learning Center at (Nanakuli Village Center) will look and feel like later this year," he said.

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