A nursing student, a retired parole officer and a flight attendant mingled on a vacant Kakaako lot Tuesday and should be neighbors a few years from now in the next condominium tower at Ward Village.

The developer of the planned high-rise called Ko‘ula held a construction blessing ceremony on the lot for what is slated to become the sixth tower built at the master-planned community covering 60 acres.

As part of the event, about 50 purchasers of Ko‘ula units priced from $514,000 studios to $2 million three-bedroom units posed for a group photo on the site bordering Auahi Street and the community’s central gathering place, Victoria Ward Park.

Tiana Young-Mauchly, a nursing student at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, was among the buyers at the ceremony. Her parents contributed most of the down payment for a studio and expect her to be finished with school and ready to make mortgage payments when the tower, scheduled for completion in early 2022, opens.

“I’m definitely excited to move back here and live here,” said Young-Mauchly, who previously lived with her parents in their Pacific Palisades home.

Tim Jones also was among the group looking forward to moving into Ko‘ula, which would be a return to Kakaako for him.

The retired parole officer moved to Hawaii from Los Angeles eight years ago and recently sold his Imperial Plaza condo in Kakaako to pay for a unit in Ko‘ula.

Jones, who is renting in Hawaii Kai while the 41-story tower gets built, said he misses his routine that included strolling around Magic Island early in the morning followed by coffee at Starbucks, lunch at Whole Foods Market and movies at Ward Village.

“I love it,” he said. “I hated to move.”

Another expected future Ko‘ula resident at Tuesday’s gathering was James Leis, an Alaska Airlines flight attendant from Seattle who has visited family on Maui for 30 years and long wanted to move to Hawaii with his wife.

“We just wanted to live in paradise,” he said. “Finally, I’m going to have a home here.”

Leis said he was attracted to Ward Village for its manicured look, vibrant nightlife and newness.

Howard Hughes Corp., the Texas-based developer of Ward Village, has a master plan to develop 4,500 homes in 16 towers plus 1 million square feet of retail on the property that for decades had been a complex of largely retail and industrial buildings known as Ward Centers.

Simon Treacy, Hawaii president for Hughes Corp., welcomed homebuyers at Tuesday’s event and told them Ko‘ula represents another milestone in building the community.

“It’s a journey, and our mission is to create an absolute world-class place for people to live, work, play, learn and refresh,” he said. “It’s your home.”

To date, four Ward Village towers are complete. The first was the ultraluxury tower Waiea, which opened about three years ago with units that sold for $3.6 million on average. The next two were Anaha and Ae‘o with average prices of $1.2 million and $1 million, respectively. The fourth tower, Ke Kilohana, opened earlier this year and was geared for moderate-income buyers under a state affordable-housing requirement that led to a $511,000 average price for 375 of the tower’s 423 units.

The fifth tower, ‘A‘ali‘i, just mauka of the Ko‘ula site, has its superstructure up to the sixth floor and is scheduled for completion in mid-2021. Unit prices there mostly ranged from the mid-$500,000s to about $1.5 million.

Hughes Corp. disclosed in a May financial report that it had sold 2,284 units among all six towers, or 85% of inventory, through the end of April, including all but 20 units in the first four towers, 608 units out of 750 at ‘A‘ali‘i and 331 units out of 565 at Ko‘ula, where sales began in December.