From March to July of 1961, Victoria Ward Ltd. — owner of more than 60 acres in Kaka‘ako — announced a new master plan for its property, along with the first substantial structure that was to be part of this redevelopment.
This plan called for the Ward property along Ala Moana Boulevard from Queen Street to Ward Avenue to eventually be the site of six highrise buildings of seven or more stories, various lowrise buildings of up to four stories, and several parking structures of at least two stories to be randomly intermingled. Mauka of this, extending up to Queen Street would be short office buildings facing Ward Avenue and Kamakee Street and light industrial structures and warehouses filling in the rest.
The new IBM Building at 1240 Ala Moana Boulevard would be the first structure of this master plan, which actually was never fully realized. Although it was named for the main commercial tenant which leased it, the building was developed by Victoria Ward in reality. It stood seven stories tall, including the penthouse which served as an employee lounge. In total there were 61,961 square feet of space and the estimated cost would be $1.5 million ($16.5 million in todayʻs dollars). Victoria Ward would occupy half of the sixth floor while IBM took the first two floors; the company then had 90 employees in Hawai‘i but it’s not known how many of these would be moved into this new home. Parking directly around the building would accommodate 70 vehicles but 250 more could be parked in the near vicinity, which at that time included open land along with used car lots.
One unexpected aspect of the IBM Building’s construction was very much a response to the world’s international situation at the time. In 1961 the United States and the USSR were still engaged in what was called the Cold War; a standoff between the two superpowers which were trying to promote their respective economic and political systems in different countries while competing with, and maneuvering against, each other. This competition saw both nations arming themselves with quantities of nuclear missiles aimed at the other, with the worrying threat of a catastrophic atomic war seemingly always possible. As the IBM Building’s construction was in its early stages in October 1961, it was proposed to add an underground nuclear shelter beneath its parking lot with a capacity of 300 people, but this was soon dropped partly because of the abundant ground water not far below the surface which would complicate the project. Ironically, one year after this would come the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the USA discovered that Russian nuclear missiles had been installed in Cuba. This led to a short but extremely intense period in which the United States imposed a military “quarantine” in the ocean around the island to prevent Russian ships from bringing in more armaments, and the potential for atomic war was frighteningly close. But the USSR backed down, war was averted, and the lack of a large shelter under the IBM Building turned out to not be a problem — fortunately.
The lead architect for the IBM Building was Vladimir Ossipoff, who by this time had established himself as probably Hawaii’s leading modern designer. Ossipoff had been born in Russia but then had moved with his family to Japan as a child, where his father was stationed in the Russian embassy. After the Russian monarchy was overthrown in 1917 the family never returned to their homeland and immigrated to the United States in 1923. Vladimir attended high school and college in California and after graduating with an architectural degree in the early 1930s during the Depression, moved to Hawaii where he was able to get a job. His career had grown steadily since then.
Ossipoff equipped the IBM Building with a remarkable exterior composed of concrete elements that he designed, and which were then manufactured locally before being installed. These formed what’s called a “brise soleil,” a French term for a sunshade, which still serve to reduce the glare of direct sunlight through large windows while also cutting cooling costs. Unique to just this single structure, the visually-striking concrete grille was more economical than one fabricated of metal, costing $3.50 per square foot vs $5 for the metal version. Many years later, Ossipoff’s business partner said the design for this exterior covering had been inspired by the appearance of what had been called “punch cards,” which were paper cards then used by IBM computers to carry information. These were well-known for having random patterns of rectangular holes that had been stamped into them.
In 2002, Victoria Ward Ltd, still a family-owned company, sold its Kaka‘ako property for $250 million to General Growth, which was an American real estate investment firm that specialized in owning and operating shopping centers. Its justification for the Kaka‘ako purchase was to possess and run Ward Warehouse and Ward Centre, the two shopping complexes located on this land. Six years later, in 2008, General Growth announced its own master plan for this land which called for the demolition of the IBM Building and pretty much everything else on the former Ward lands beginning in 2010.
Fans of Ossipoff and his work immediately objected, but many others saw its destruction as no big loss. Three people quoted in a 2008 newspaper article expressed indifference or open disapproval: “I don’t happen to think it’s particularly attractive…it’s not the best use for that location. If it’s going to be an office, you could have a newer, better office building on that site,” said Jamie Brown of Hawai‘i Commercial Real Estate. From Gary Gordon, construction superintendent: “It’s period architecture. Unfortunately, its time has come and gone, and it doesn’t blend in.” And from Francis Oda, chairman and CEO of Group 70 International architects: “It’s an interesting building but [Ossipoff did] better than that…[and] you can’t just have a knee-jerk reaction to preserve everything.” Apparently these three thought that nothing different from the multiple reflective glass towers we see in this location today should be present to interrupt the overall uniformity.
General Growth’s plan was never carried out. The company ran into financial problems and some of its assets were required to be spun off, leading to the 2012 switch in the ownership of the former Ward property to the Howard Hughes Corporation. Fortunately, the latter decided that the IBM Building was worthy of preservation and on February 1, 2013 began a $24 million renovation and revamp of it. The remodeled ground floor would house the publicly accessible scale model of the planned redevelopment of this portion of Kaka‘ako; this has been in place since 2014 and is still there today in 2026. The model has, of course, been changed over this 12-year period since the original target of 22 residential towers has been reduced in number.
We can be grateful that short-sighted dislike of “outdated buildings” which can lead to the loss of structures that could never be replicated today, due to costs or the lack of workmanship expertise to do the work, did not claim the IBM Building more than 15 years ago. It will continue to stand as a physical artifact of what Kaka‘ako once was.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
