The wrecking ball now has a firm date with Ward Warehouse.

Property owner Howard Hughes Corp. has informed the Kakaako retail complex’s roughly 60 tenants that they must vacate in August to make way for residential tower development.

The closure has been anticipated since Hughes Corp. in 2014 applied for and received state approval to develop two residential towers on much of the site. The company initially said that construction might start in mid-2015. Later, clearing for demolition was pushed back to no earlier than March 2016, then to as early as July of this year.

“The demolition of Ward Warehouse is a bittersweet point in the development of our Ward Village community,” Todd Apo, Hughes Corp. vice president of community development, said in a statement. “As we look forward to the future of this area, we give a heartfelt mahalo to all the merchants who have made Ward Warehouse a special place over the last four decades.”

Ward Warehouse, planned as a “temporary” structure to exist about 15 years, was built in 1974-75 largely using timber.

Hughes Corp. — which has a master plan for 16 towers and 1 million square feet of retail on 60 acres that also include Ward Centre and warehouse property — plans to develop three towers on the Ward Warehouse site. The two approved towers — to be 28 stories with 123 units and 35 stories with 113 units — are called Ward Village Gateway. A public recreational space with a waterway running between the two towers is also part of the plan.

The development firm said it is assisting with tenant relocation.