Possibly the most colorful condominium and the shiniest condominium anywhere in Hawaii are about finished with construction and are welcoming new homeowners who now call Kakaako home.
Over the last several weeks, close to 500 households have begun moving into the two condos — a midrise called 400 Keawe and the high-rise Symphony Honolulu.
The two projects represent part of the early edge of a condo development boom in Kakaako that took hold a few years ago and is expected to deliver three more towers this year.
At 400 Keawe nearly all of the 95 households have moved into the sold-out six-story building, which developer Castle & Cooke Homes Hawaii decided should stand out visually between neighboring glass-sided condo towers.
Castle & Cooke painted parts of the building four different colors — a shade of burgundy, blue grey, a creamy yellow and highway stripe yellow.
“We’re so accustomed to earth tones,” Bruce Barrett, a Castle & Cooke executive vice president, said about the company that has built primarily suburban homes for decades in Hawaii. “But this was an urban area. We knew we would have to be more vibrant. We think it is fitting in quite well.”
Jerry Romano, a new 400 Keawe homeowner, sold his earth-tone single-family home in Mililani Mauka to live in the edgier Kakaako area primarily to avoid a horrific commute and the toil of home maintenance.
“The rail (construction) did me in driving home in traffic,” he said, proclaiming that he now has a simplified life.
Romano, who moved in May 1, added that his wife now can walk to work on Cooke Street.
Castle & Cooke said local residents represented about 90 percent of buyers, of which 85 percent are owner-occupants. Prices at 400 Keawe ranged from $390,000 to $775,000 for units with 580 square feet to 1,300 square feet of living space.
At Symphony, residents have been moving into the 388-unit tower for several weeks.
About 368 of the units, or 95 percent of the tower, have been sold. The remaining inventory is largely limited to upper-floor penthouses, according to a representative of the project’s developer, San Diego-based OliverMcMillan. Prices for all Symphony units ranged from roughly $500,000 to $3 million.
The 45-story tower is at the mauka-Ewa corner of Ward Avenue and Kapiolani Boulevard, and will feature a JN Group Inc. luxury car and European motorcycle dealership called Velocity.
Among 16 brands represented in Velocity’s showroom will be Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley, Lamborghini, Lotus, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Moto Guzzi, Vespa, Piaggio, Aprilia and Triumph.
Another unique detail about Symphony is that it was revealed last year during construction to be perhaps the shiniest high-rise in Honolulu. A regulatory hearing found the building’s glass walls didn’t comply with a state rule.
OliverMcMillan paid the state $1 million for the offense, which was discovered after much of the glass had already been installed, though the state agency that created the rule admitted that the rule was unenforceable. During the hearing before the Hawaii Community Development Authority, it was learned that the Symphony’s glass is one of the most reflective available on the market for tower wall construction.
The openings of Symphony and 400 Keawe are slated to be followed later this year by three more towers: 801 South St. Building B at the corner of South and Kapiolani, Waiea at the corner of Ala Moana Boulevard and Kamakee Street at Ward Village and The Collection at the makai end of South Street.
Two additional towers — Anaha and Ae‘o at Ward Village — are under construction in Kakaako and are slated to be finished in the next year or two.