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Home Depot
scraps plans for
Hawaii Kai

Mayor Harris says that the
land sought by the retailer
instead will be used to
develop housing

---

By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

Home Depot Inc. has dropped its controversial plans to buy a 43-acre parcel of land in Hawaii Kai from Kamehameha Schools, Mayor Jeremy Harris confirmed today.

"That project is dead, and it is going to be developed residential," said Harris, who opposed the retailer's plan.

Harris told the Star-Bulletin that, instead of Home Depot, developer Stanford Carr plans to build housing on the Kuapa Peninsula site. Carr could not be reached for immediate comment.

A Home Depot spokeswoman had no immediate comment.

Earlier this year, Kamehameha Schools' board of trustees approved a staff report recommending the sale of its fee interest in the property. A spokesman for the estate could not be reached for comment today.

Atlanta-based Home Depot reportedly was considering the property at the Kuapa Peninsula for its third Oahu outlet.

The plan met with strong opposition from the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board and Harris, who did not want the waterfront property blocked by a commercial building. The property is zoned for residential so Home Depot would have had to get a zoning change, which Harris said he would have blocked.

Charlie Rogers, chairman of the neighborhood board, also said today that he had been told Home Depot had abandoned its plans.

Previously Japan-based Nansay Hawaii Inc. owned the leasehold interest on the Hawaii Kai property and planned to build an upscale project of 324 condominium units and 280 townhouses. The project did not get off the ground because leasehold property was out of favor on the market then, said Rogers.

Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement "big box" retailer, opened a 145,000-square-foot store in Iwilei and recently broke ground on a second store in Pearl City.