The best option in almost any development plan can be elusive, but it can be worth making the extra effort to nail it down.

In this case, involving a condominium project at the Ala Moana terminus of the city’s developing rail system, giving up too quickly on the best option would be a regrettable mistake.

That best option? Developing a transit center as part of the plan.

The Honolulu City Council is poised for a final vote today on Resolution 18-169, which will give developer SamKoo Hawaii the exemptions it wants to build a 43-story tower, dubbed The Central, on its 1.43-acre site fronting Ala Moana Center. The site abuts the planned rail station at the shopping center, an endpoint that will connect to various bus routes nearby.

The Council seems to be leaning toward approving the plan as is, which would foreclose an option Mayor Kirk Caldwell hopes to preserve. Instead, members should take a breath and allow a little more time for negotiating a possible accord.

SamKoo is planning 513 units, 38 percent of which would be priced for those earning at or below 120 percent of the area median income (AMI); 22 percent will be affordable to households at 120-140 percent AMI. This is a relatively good yield for affordable units, of course, but there are offsets if the resolution passes. For one, the developer would bend the height limit upwards to 400 feet, be entitled to greater density and get a break on $10.7 million in fees for park dedication and other purposes.

That outcome blunts the Council’s mandate to serve the public interest, especially when those losses are compounded by the shrinking opportunities for a public-private partnership on the transit center.

The envisioned center is an important asset, critical to the ultimate success of the rail system, because it makes connections between the rail and bus circuits — to Waikiki, the University of Hawaii and other destinations — as convenient as possible. If this multimodal system is to be seen as a workable transportation solution for these endpoints, it needs to be comfortable and well planned.

The mayor’s proposal is to enlarge the SamKoo Kona Street location by the city acquiring the adjoining parcels and leasing them to the developer at a nominal cost. This would both allow for more developable square footage and for a potential future path continuing the rail alignment to UH.

Trying to move the center to other parcels, as some on the Council suggest, would not be easily workable. If a future rail extension runs down Kapiolani, believed to be the most practical path to the UH, the SamKoo site and adjoining parcels provide a gently curving route joining the Kona tracks with a new Kapiolani alignment.

Further, Caldwell said, this location would connect the shopping center more directly with the transit hub and provide Kapiolani Boulevard frontage for Ala Moana, which the center now lacks.

That is an advantage that’s appealing to its landlords, Brookfield Property Partners, which acquired former shopping center owner, General Growth Partners, earlier this year. And that would provide the basis of a deal to bring Brookfield as a partner in the terminus and transit center development, sharing the costs.

Caldwell acknowledges that early negotiations with SamKoo, going back to 2013, soured because uncertainties over the rail plans complicated the process of designing a transit center. As Council members have rightly pointed out, that would have been the optimal time to shape this partnership.

It’s unclear whether those kinks can be hammered out now — but it’s worth a little pause to make the effort. The transit-hub plan does make sense, and the Council should give it a reasonable chance to succeed. A mixed-use rail terminus that’s well planned rather than jerry-rigged is a worthwhile goal.