VIDEO: Kehalani Village Center, the “Piko of Wailuku”

By Wendy Osher

[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNAc-c6CY4o /] Stanford Carr Development hosted a groundbreaking and blessing ceremony on Thursday to celebrate the beginning of construction on the Kehalani Village Center.

The project will be the future home to Foodland, Longs, McDonalds, and other retail, restaurant and office buildings.

The 200,000 square foot development sits on a corner parcel at the Kaupo/Waiale Road intersection in Wailuku.

Stanford Carr has been involved with the Kehalani land since purchasing C. Brewer Homes in 1998.

Council member Michael Victorino joins Developer Stanford Carr, and Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa in untying the maile lei at the groundbreaking of the Kehalani Villages Center in Wailuku.

In 2000, Carr was successful in de-listing the publicly traded company, and returned it to private operations as a Hawai’i company.

Since starting the Kehalani project, 1,300 homes have been completed, and 1,100 more homes are planned.

“What’s important to make a community sustainable, is not only homes and parks, but a neighborhood employment center,” said Carr.

“Our goal here was not to create a strip center.  We want this to become the piko of Wailuku; a gathering place,” he said.

Carr said he hopes to recreate the synergism that once existed before Ooka Supermarket in Wailuku closed down.

“I remember as a kid, that’s where you’d run into all of your friends and family.  Sometimes that’s the only time you would see them, is running into them at the supermarket,” he said.

Other recent communities developed by Stanford Carr on Maui include The Villas and Hoʻoleʻa Terrace at Kehalani.