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Real estate negotiations between the City &County of Honolulu and the owner of a commercial center eyed for a future first-responder hub on the North Shore will require more time to complete, city officials say. The site, a 4.58-acre business zone located on the 59-700 block of Kamehameha Highway in Pupukea, includes a Foodland Super Market, mauka of the popular snorkeling and diving spot, Shark’s Cove. Earmarking $26 million for this acquisition, the city is seeking three parcels next to the supermarket which are slated to become a North Shore Ocean Safety Station and Emergency Medical Services division ambulance unit facility, officials say. The city’s support for the first-responder hub project occurred earlier this year. At his fifth State of the City Address, Mayor Rick Blangiardi formally announced the city’s planned acquisition of the Pupukea properties. “These plans are subject to a negotiated sale price with the current landowner, but will be transformative for our North Shore communities,” the mayor declared, during the March 18 event. But due to apparent delays in talks between the parties, the city and the site’s owner, Hanapohaku LLC, are now requesting the Honolulu City Council grant a two-year extension to a prior deadline on the project’s development permit. The project requires a development permit be issued with Hanapohaku’s existing special management area major permit, or SMA, that also includes the Sullivan Family Limited Partnership, and the Maurice and Joanna Sullivan Family Foundation. An area extending inland from the shoreline, the SMA was established under state law in 1975 to preserve and protect Hawaii’s coastal zones. The counties, also under state law, have the power to administer such permits. On Oahu, the Council has that authority. To that end, the Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee on Oct. 16 voted unanimously to pass a draft of Resolution 261 toward full Council adoption to grant that two-year time The next full Council meeting is scheduled for Nov. 5. Besides the planned first-responder hub, the project, also known as McCully’s Corner, would include development of a rural community commercial center with two parking lots, a new individual wastewater treatment system, low-impact development controls for drainage, and other associated improvements, city documents state. The project consists of two two-story structures and one single-story structure with approximately 34,500 square feet of floor area, and proposes to provide a mix of goods and services, city reports state. The development also includes 126 parking spaces, a staging area for up to five food trucks, approximately 16,000 square feet of photovoltaic panels, bicycle parking, and a new shared entrance and exit access way with the existing grocery store, city documents indicate. The total assessed value for the three properties in question is more than $4.73 million, according to the city’s Real Property Assessment Hanapohaku, led by Andrew Yani, submitted a request on Aug. 29, for a two-year extension to their current Nov. 14 deadline to obtain a development permit, the city said. During the zoning meeting, Committee Chair Esther Kia‘aina noted the rural community center project has undergone a number of delays and requested multiple city permit extensions since 2018. “The applicant now requests a further two-year extension of the Nov. 14, 2025 deadline, which, if approved, will result in a new deadline of Nov. 14, 2027,” she said. She also said the Council’s April 14 adoption of Resolution 81 had added a government building symbol in the vicinity of the parcels on the public infrastructure map, or PIM, for the city’s North Shore Sustainable Communities Plan area. “The addition of the PIM symbol allowed the Council to appropriate $26 million for land acquisition for the North Shore Ocean Safety Station and ambulance unit facility in the city’s fiscal year 2026 executive capital budget and program, which was enacted on June 24, 2025,” Kia‘aina explained. According to the submittal, the applicant told the city Department of Planning and Permitting that its development efforts have been on hold for the past six months in order to negotiate in “good faith” with the city in its efforts to purchase the project site. “Hanapohaku has and will continue to work cooperatively with the DPP relative to its permits and any further inquiries DPP may have while pursuing its sale of the property to the city,” Christian Adams, Hanapohaku’s agent, wrote in an Aug. 29 letter to DPP. “An extension of the deadline to secure the requisite development permit allows Hanapohaku to continue to focus its efforts of working with the city in good faith toward finalizing its purchase of the property in lieu of an expedited construction and development schedule to meet SMA use permit requirements,” Adams wrote. The requested two- year extension on this project was also made by DPP and the city Department of Housing and Land Management. At the zoning committee meeting, Pupukea resident and University of Hawaii law school professor emeritus Denise Antolini — testifying virtually on behalf of Save Sharks Cove Alliance — supported her community’s urgent need for the planned first-responder hub project. “Just last weekend, there were 25 rescues in our area of Ocean Safety,” Antolini said via Zoom. “There are lives at stake, and I think we’re all in alignment to move this forward as best we can, as soon as Council member Matt Weyer — whose Council District 2 includes the North Shore — queried Antolini on her thoughts over the two-year extension “to ensure the full acquisition occurs.” “This particular property does have a history of environmental impact statements that have already been done for various projects,” she replied. “There’s a lot of information that the developer and prior owners have provided about this property, so we’re quite confident, and that a lot is known about the property and that it should move forward very quickly.” But Antolini noted her group was in support of a “shorter time frame” for the city’s property acquisition for two reasons. “One, to make sure the community stays in support of this process, and is not, I would say, rattled by a longer extension,” she said. “And the second one is just the urgency, it really is a life-or-death situation, and I know we can all get behind a quicker time frame.” “And I imagine the landowner would like that too,” she added. Kia‘aina then asked Antolini about any “harm” a two-year extension might have on this project. “Because I don’t want to see this SMA again.” Antolini replied the “harm is basically community concerns about this languishing.” “And so in the community view everyone is better off by putting a time frame on it,” she said. “And let me just add that the community views this project in the context of prior extensions, this would be the fourth extension.” “So what we don’t want, honestly, is for people in the community to get concerned and try to derail it and be critical and interfere with negotiations,” Antolini said. “So strategically, this is really the best way to go in our view.” City officials also responded to Council questions over the requested two years to complete this real estate transaction. DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna told the committee because the city is “in negotiations for the purchase of these parcels, I think it’s in good faith that we ask for two years,” “So that the negotiations, and everything that needs to follow-up to ‘full close’ on those purchases, happens,” she added, “and we don’t know if that will take a year in itself.” Takeuchi Apuna also noted “two years is certainly more reasonable than one in order to get all of this done — in closing the transaction and moving forward under the SMA.” DHLM Deputy Director Catherine Taschner stated her agency originally asked “for a minimum of one year,” but was supportive of the two-year extension as described in Resolution 261’s latest draft. “So, at minimum, we’re asking for a one-year extension so we have time to procure, review and complete the due diligence to support our land acquisition,” she added. “OK, so when did the acquisition process start?” Weyer asked. “So we’ve been evaluating this acquisition for several months,” Taschner replied. “The threshold issue is the appraisal and what price at which we’ll acquire the properties. So that’s the stage that we’re at currently.” After the meeting, the Mayor’s Office confirmed a final purchase price for the city’s desired Pupukea properties is still not set. “DHLM is awaiting the completed appraisal, which will determine the amount the city pays for the three properties,” said Scott Humber, the mayor’s communications director. He added the preliminary cost to build the planned North Shore Ocean Safety Station and EMS ambulance facility is estimated at approximately $15 million. “The city believes that investing in a first-responder hub at this location will materially improve EMS response times and enhance safety in our beaches and nearshore waters,” Humber said.
