Two city measures meant to expand transit-­oriented development including mixed-use retail, residential and affordable housing sites near the state’s future New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District in Halawa have been adopted.

After official approval on Dec. 26, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi formally signed Bills 50 and 51 Wednesday morning in his Honolulu Hale office.

Those in attendance included City Council member Radiant Cordero, who represents District 7, which includes the Halawa area, as well as Hawaii Stadium Authority Board Chair Brennon Morioka, Vice Chair Eric Fuji­moto and Board member John Fink.

“The signing of Bills 50 and 51 is everything we wanted to do with transit-oriented development in a special district for land situated all in and around Halawa,” Blangiardi said.

The mayor’s approval follows the City Council’s unanimous Dec. 6 votes to adopt Bill 50, to expand the city’s TOD special district in that area; and Bill 51, aiming, in part, to reclassify residential zoning areas to mixed-use business zoning, near the shuttered Aloha Stadium and Skyline’s Halawa Station, which opened to the public June 30.

The city Department of Planning and Permitting says the Halawa TOD Plan envisions dense, mixed-use development with a central gateway connecting the rail station to the NASED’s proposed 25,000-seat, multi-use stadium on the existing 98-acre site.

Gov. Josh Green’s administration says the price tag for the new, state-run stadium — smaller than the former venue’s 50,000 seats — is approximately $400 million. The state says the new stadium will not only host football games but local and international sporting events including world-class rugby, soccer and music concerts.

Under a project slated to begin construction by late 2025 or early 2026, the state says it expects more than 20% of residential housing at NASED would be affordable housing, while approximately 70% is deemed workforce housing.

On Dec. 14, the state released a request for proposals toward the construction of the NASED project. The deadline for bid proposals is this summer.

Once a builder is chosen, NASED construction may start by late 2025, and is expected to be completed by 2028, the state says.

At the bill signing, Stadium Authority Chair Morioka noted the NASED project plans to have a total of 4,500 units built around the site.

“It’s going to be a mixed-use area,” said Morioka. “You can envision hotels, offices, residential buildings, open space, areas where people can work, live, play and it’s really going to be very multi-modal; it’s meant to tie into regions, because it is the central part that kind of connects a lot of the different regions on Oahu.”

The planned NASED project will also be “very bike friendly, pedestrian friendly and, obviously, rail friendly,” he added.

However, Morioka said none of these projects is ready to start construction yet as the state awaits proposals from potential builders.

“We do expect to have responses in the first quarter of 2024,” he said, “and at that point that’s when we would start getting ideas from some of our proposers — our development teams — on what kinds of things they would like to plan.”

He added the Halawa TOD area plan is “one of the major guidelines” future developers will have to follow.

“We do anticipate that whatever teams are successful in getting through our procurement process will be able to deliver a very high-class, highly desirable gathering area that (is) not just for residents of the Aiea and Halawa area but for people from all over Honolulu,” Morioka said. “People who are visiting our islands as well can come and gather at this place because it’s going to be someplace that’s welcoming and safe, and they’re going to feel like they belong there.”

Cordero said the result of the two bills will improve the Halawa area.

“It’s an opportunity,” she said. “Something that we can really do to not only enhance what’s already in Ha­lawa but also to highlight what has been Halawa … like Pearl Harbor, our historic sites, we have our neighbors that have been there for generations (and) we have local and Native Hawaiian cultural sites.”

Meanwhile, city Department of Transportation Services Director Roger Morton said Skyline is a year and a half away from opening its second phase — extending the rail from Halawa station, past the airport to the Kalihi Transit Center on Middle Street.

“But more important than that, now is the time to talk about the real value of Skyline, and the ability to leverage Skyline, particularly around Halawa and transit-­oriented development around the area,” Morton said, adding DTS is coordinating with the Stadium Authority on that development. “We’ve met with them many times in trying to put together a world-class plan.”

He noted when the city’s rail project began years ago “and we plugged in the (Aloha) Stadium as a major destination point, none of us thought that when we opened Skyline that we would have this empty stadium there.”

“So, it’s with a lot of enthusiasm that we (are) now looking forward to 2028/2029 when, again, we can have a world-class stadium that will become a key destination point,” he said. “And Skyline will provide that focused accessibility, that focused transportation capacity, so that when we do have it we will have a very, very successful land use (and) things that we talked about here on this island for the last 40 years are going to come to fruition over the next five or six years.”

As far as the two measures are concerned, Tim Streitz, DPP’s acting administrator for its TOD division, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the zoning changes are not directly related to any particular project, “although they would support the state’s (NASED)… and Puuwai Momi public housing developments currently being planned in portions of the TOD area,” Streitz said via email.

“The future neighborhood characteristics will be largely influenced by the state’s NASED project on the Aloha Stadium site because it encompasses such a large portion of the TOD area,” Streitz said previously. “The city worked closely with the state on the Halawa TOD Plan, and the state’s NASED project is expected to be generally consistent with the TOD Plan, although certain details of the actual developments may differ.”