Has Kakaako Gotten Too Fancy Even For IBM?
The company will soon depart its landmark namesake building to make way for developer offices and model condos.
It might seem like a hyperbolic joke that tony Kakaako has become so gentrified that even a multibillion-dollar corporation is being forced out of its space, but that鈥檚 actually the case for one of the neighborhood鈥檚 longtime聽 tenants.
, the blue chip corporate resident of its landmark building on Ala Moana Boulevard, is being run out of the space it has occupied since the 1960s. The , with its distinctive modern, concrete facade, will no longer be home for IBM.
鈥淚t all goes back to the success we鈥檝e seen at ,鈥 said Todd Apo, vice president of community relations for Ward Village development, which owns the building.
Howard Hughes is well underway transforming the master-planned community in Kakaako. Since spinning off from General Growth Properties in 2010 and taking over the project, Howard Hughes has pumped about into the area to build condo towers anchored by retail shops and restaurants.
, the company had sold 1,339 units in four towers: Waiea, Anaha, Aeo and Ke Kilohana. And it had聽sold another 348 at its planned
To help with this massive sales push, Howard Hughes聽has built model condominium units in the IBM Building and plans to add more models to market its forthcoming, 570-unit project slated for Auahi Street, Apo said. Howard Hughes also intends to move workers who are located at remote offices into the IBM Building to be with the rest of the company鈥檚 workers, he said.
It’s all a function of the massive growth the company has seen as it has transformed the area into one of Honolulu’s more prestigious neighborhoods. Howard Hughes had 12 employees in 2012, Apo said, and had grown to more than 60 in 2016. By the end of this year, the company expects to have a staff of more than 100, he said.
Howard Hughes now occupies the IBM Building鈥檚 second, third, sixth and seventh floors, said Race Randle, senior vice president of development for the Texas-based developer. The first floor is an information center.
With IBM’s lease for space on the fourth floor expiring at the end of the year, the landlord has notified and other tenants that Howard Hughes will take over the whole floor.
That’s sad news for Stacey Leong Mills, partner and creative director of , a graphic design firm that’s been in the building since 2009, before Howard Hughes came on the scene.聽She’s sorry to leave the building and says commercial space is getting hard to find in a neighborhood increasingly taken over by residences and retail.
“IBM is leaving what’s known as the IBM Building,” she said, incredulous.
It鈥檚 a big change from the early 1960s, when the noted architect 聽designed the building for IBM’s Hawaii headquarters. Ossipoff’s uniquely Hawaiian designs include the terminal at Honolulu鈥檚 , the and Punahou School鈥檚 .
It鈥檚 a distinctive type of mid-20th century modernism, often including open air spaces, as if the 聽built a house in the islands after spending time in Japan. And according to Howard Hughes’s , “Of the dozens of homes and buildings he created, the IBM structure was Ossipoff’s most recognized design.”
The facade is designed to look like聽IBM’s old “lace”聽.
鈥淣ot only does the systematic and repetitious pattern of the concrete grille (the聽brise-soleil) express the computer-world character of the IBM Corp., but it also gives the building a sense of belonging in the sun,鈥 Howard Hughes quotes Ossipoff as saying.
Although the public will still likely call the building by its well-known moniker, whether IBM will remain an official name isn’t clear. The landmark Pan Am building on Kapiolani Boulevard still carries the name of Pan American World Airways, even though the airline shut down in 1991 amid a financial fallout caused by the first Persian Gulf War and a聽 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988.
But unlike Pan Am, IBM is still a pillar of the , with nearly $80 billion in revenue last year. IBM executives did not return calls for comment. Apo declined to comment on the future of the building’s name.
Thoughts on this or any other story? Write a Letter to the Editor. Send to news@civilbeat.org and put Letter in the subject line. 200 words max. You need to use your name and city and include a contact phone for verification purposes.
You can also comment directly on this story by scrolling down a little further. Comments are subject to approval and we may not publish every one.
