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Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

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Katie Helland

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Michael Brestovansky

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Kallin Spiller

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Stephanie Salmons

Real Estate

It’s the end of an era in Ward Village, Howard Hughes’ 60-acre master-planned community located between Downtown and Waikīkī, as developers move forward with plans to bring more residences to the community.

Ward Centre, which opened in 1982 and served the community for more than four decades, officially closed its doors to the public on June 30. Although a timeline has not yet been finalized, sources say that demolition and redevelopment work at the site is expected to begin in the third quarter of the year.

The demolition will clear the way for two luxury towers planned at the site: 

“We have a fond aloha for Ward Centre and its important role in the history of our neighborhood,” Doug Johnstone, president of Hawai‘i Region and national condominium development at Howard Hughes Communities, said in a statement provided to Aloha State Daily. “As plans move forward for redevelopment on the site, we look forward to announcing details about the next phase, which will deliver additional retail, open space and a new public park, as well as hundreds of new homes, further enhancing the connected, walkable neighborhood experience at Ward Village while reflecting its long-term vision as a master-planned community.”

Three of the center’s tenants are relocating within Ward Village: Johnny’s Island Dog Spa and Sweat + Soul are moving to 320 Ward Ave., while Kamitoku Ramen is moving to the former Scratch Kitchen space in South Shore Market. You can read more about Kamitoku Ramen 

which closed its Ward Centre and downtown Honolulu locations — 

As previously reported, Ward Village sold out its first eight mixed-use residential towers: Waiea, Anaha, Ae‘o, Ke Kilohana, ‘A‘ali‘i, Kō‘ula, Victoria Place and Ulana Ward Village.

In addition to ‘Ilima and Melia, new residential buildings in development or under construction include Kalae and The Launiu Ward Village.

, bringing another another 546 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom homes and more than 30,000 square feet of retail and dining space to Kaka‘ako. It was 97% pre-sold when it was completed, the developer said at that time. 

Ward Village marked a record year in 2025, with momentum driven by the launch of Melia Ward Village and ‘Ilima Ward Village earlier in the year.

In Hawai‘i last year, Howard Hughes contracted to sell 287 condos, which accounted for roughly $1.6 billion in future revenue, according to 

Of those, 220 units at Melia and ‘Ilima, and 63 units at The Launiu were contracted, the report, published earlier this year, noted. At year-end, the predevelopment condos of Melia and ‘Ilima were 60% pre-sold and The Launiu was 71% pre-sold. Meanwhile, Kalae was 93% sold.

By the end of 2025, Melia and ‘Ilima were about 60% pre-sold.

The 33-story ‘Ilima will have 148 homes while Melia, its 35-story companion, will offer 221 residences. Together, the projects will add about 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial and retail space, along with a public park.

Ward Village also hit a number of other milestones in 2025.

 of last year and the makai phase of Victoria Ward Park 

The Launiu, Ward Village’s 11th residential tower, broke ground 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>Ward Centre closed; looming demolition will make way for new Ward Village towers</title>

Although a timeline has not yet been finalized, sources say that demolition and redevelopment work at the site is expected to begin later this year.

Ward Centre closed; looming demolition will make way for new Ward Village towers

Government & Politics

A plan by Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi to open a landfill in Kapa‘a Quarry has already spurred local opposition.

After a previous plan to build a landfill near Makakilo 

 in June when the Honolulu City Council didn’t approve funding, the entire island of O‘ahu was rendered unavailable for landfill development thanks to an overlapping series of land use restrictions — landfills 

 be built near airports, within tsunami evacuation zones, on federal lands, over protected aquifers, or near schools, hospitals or residential areas.

But this week, Blangiardi announced that he intends to work with the state Legislature to repeal 

, a 2020 measure that established some of the land use restrictions impeding landfill development.

That law includes a prohibition against waste disposal facilities being built in a conservation district, as well as a requirement that any such facility include a buffer zone of at least half a mile between the facility and the nearest residential, school or hospital property line.

But area legislators have already pushed back on the plan. A delegation of windward lawmakers — senators Jarrett Keohokalole and and Chris Lee, and representatives Lisa Marten and Mike Lee — made a joint statement Tuesday expressing disappointment that Kapa‘a Quarry has been chosen.

a Quarry sits immediately adjacent to residential communities, critical watersheds, cultural resources, and environmentally sensitive areas,” read Marten’s statement. “A proposal of this magnitude demands transparency, scientific analysis, and genuine public engagement.”

Marten added that the Legislature should instead review 

, a bill passed last year that prohibits landfills from being built inland of the underground injection control line, a boundary that designates whether an aquifer is a protected source of drinking water.

Marten said that there exists improved mapping techniques that can provide more accurate evaluations of possible landfill sites, and that Act 255 should be revised “to reflect the best available science and data.”

The lawmakers said local communities — including people who might be within the buffer zones established by Act 73 — have not been properly consulted about the plan, and have already had to bear the brunt of six previous landfills since 1940.

But, the City and County is between a rock and a hard place: the last landfill on the island, the Waimānalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill, is scheduled to close in 2028 when a special use permit expires. Even if that permit is extended, at current waste generation rates, the landfill is expected to reach capacity by 2031.

The Council established earlier this year an “End Landfills Task Force” that will develop a transition plan for adopting long-term waste strategies to end the island’s reliance on landfills, but that plan is not expected to be completed until late 2027.

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<title>Kapa‘a Quarry landfill plan spurs pushback</title>

Plan to repeal landfill restrictions to build a landfill at the Kapa‘a Quarry already controversial

Kapa‘a Quarry landfill plan spurs pushback

Crime & Courts

The state Department of Transportation’s Airports Administrator is on paid leave after being named in a bribery indictment last week.

Ford Fuchigami was one of five people to be 

 by an O‘ahu grand jury on bribery charges, alongside Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, former Rep. Ryan Yamane, former Public Utilities Commission chair Leo Asuncion Jr., and lobbyist Tobi Solidum.

Fuchigami’s charges — use of false statements, conspiracy to commit bribery and obstruction of justice — stem from a $7,000 check he reportedly received from Solidum in Jan. 2022, when Fuchigami was an employee of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. That payment was allegedly connected to Solidum’s efforts to get the Legislature to pass a Covid funding bill; the Senate Ways and Means Committee did so unanimously two months later.

Following that indictment, DOT “will follow its internal administrative policies” regarding Fuchigami, DOT public information officer Russell Pang told Aloha State Daily. While that means DOT will cooperate with any requests from various authorities, it also means the Airports Administrator was been placed on paid department-directed leave for 30 days as of Monday.

“Administrator Fuchigami will be afforded due process before any disciplinary action is taken, if warranted,” Pang told ASD via email.

Fuchigami and his fellow indictees are set to appear in court for an arraignment Thursday. Four of the five — Fuchigami, Luke, Yamane and Asuncion — have posted their respective bails, while Solidum has reportedly fled to the Philippines.

A bench warrant for Solidum is pending, and he is to be held without bail should he be apprehended.

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<title>State airports administrator on paid leave following bribery indictment</title>

Ford Fuchigami will appear in court Thursday along with Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke.

State airports administrator on paid leave following bribery indictment

Arts & Entertainment

Aloha Spirit

Ready to experience some great storytelling? The Tony Award-winning musical “Les Misérables” continues its performances at Diamond Head Theatre, while the Hawaiʻi Shakespeare Festival is set to open the play “Julius Caesar” at Mānoa Valley Theatre.

Prefer a film? Catch the final screenings of the Honolulu Surf Film Festival. Here are some of the happenings this weekend on Oʻahu:

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Mark your calendars for this Waipahu Bon dance.

 Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji will hold its Bon dance from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, July 31, and Saturday, Aug. 1. 

Celebrate ko Hawaiʻi Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea. 

 will celebrate ko Hawaiʻi Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, or Sovereignty Restoration Day, which was one of the first national holidays of the Hawaiian Kingdom, marking the return of political power to the government of King Kamehameha III after the British temporarily seized control of Hawaiʻi in 1843. Free. 

This classic musical, which is taking the stage at Diamond Head Theatre, is based on Victor Hugo’s novel, and tells the story of Jean Valjean, who agrees to care for a factory worker’s daughter. Shows run Thursday through Sunday. Many performances are already sold out. Limited tickets are available. 

Attend the Hawaiʻi Shakespeare Festival. 

The Hawaiʻi Shakespeare Festival will open “Julius Caesar” at Mānoa Valley Theatre on Friday, July 31. Directed by Alex Munro, this

 production explores how a modern Julius Caesar would weaponize technology to obtain power. The show features a modern set plus pre-recorded videos and livestreams. Tickets are $15 on Wednesdays and Thursdays and $25 on Friday through Sunday. The 

Check out the Honolulu Surf Film Festival. 

The Honolulu Surf Film Festival will share its final screenings in the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Museum of Art this week. Catch “Kingdom of the Evening” and “Surf Poets Society X HSFF 2026” on Friday, July 31. On Saturday, Aug. 1, watch “Locals Only 2026.” Finally, catch “Water Colours” on Sunday, Aug. 2. Tickets for each screening are $15. 

Watch “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in Concert. 

Catch part one of this movie on the big screen while the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra plays the score live in the Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall. The performances will take place on Friday, July 31, and Saturday, Aug. 1. Tickets start at $38.50. 

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Consolidated Theatres and Comedy U have announced another live stand-up comedy night at Consolidated Theatres Kapolei. The show features Jose Dynamite and five guest comedians: Ian Shippen, Tre Kun, Jasmine Bautista, Nalo, and Kanoa Morse. The live performances may include some R-rated laughs, so this event is recommended for adult audiences. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the performances start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $40, which includes a $20 concession voucher for snacks or drinks. 

Catch Ballet Hawaiʻi’s Summer Intensive, “Forces of Nature.” 

Ballet Hawaiʻi will host its summer intensive, “Forces of Nature,” at Leeward Community College Theatre. From volcanoes to Vivaldi, this show brings nature to life through dance. Tickets are $50. Use the promo code FORCES20 for a 20% discount. 

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This screening chronicles the true story of three boys who discover a juvenile

Tyrannosaurus rex fossil in North Dakota. The extended cut of the film will show at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the J. Watumull Planetarium at Bishop Museum. General admission is $5. Entry for children who are two years old or younger is free. 

 Send us your pictures of sunrises, sunsets and more.  Submitted photos may be featured in our reader submission series called Hawaiʻi Skies. Tell us what you saw and why it was special. 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

“Les Misérables”

<title>Bon dance, 'Les Misérables,' and laughs: what to do on Oʻahu this weekend</title>

Ready to plan your weekend? Aloha State Daily can help! From a Bon dance in Waipahu to a Comedy U and Consolidated Theatres collaboration in Kapolei, there are lots of events happening across Oʻahu this Friday, July 31, through Sunday, Aug. 2.

Bon dance, 'Les Misérables,' and laughs: what to do on Oʻahu this weekend

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Sterling Higa

Columnists

On Monday morning, while ballots printed with Tommy Waters’ name lay on kitchen tables across East Honolulu, Judge James Ashford ruled that Waters may not run for the seat on offer.

It is the third time in 12 years that a judge has been asked to weigh in on the council election in District 4.

Trevor Ozawa beat Waters by 41 votes in 2014. Waters challenged the result without success. When Ozawa won reelection by 22 votes in 2018, Waters sued again. That time, courts ordered a do-over election, which Waters won in 2019 by a thousand votes.

This time, Ozawa has sued before votes are counted. Courts ruled Waters ineligible to run because he has already served two consecutive terms in office. Waters has said he plans to appeal.

Each man has thrown challenge flags, and the referee wears a robe and holds a gavel.

Anyone tempted to despair over this should read a short book. The 

 is a campaign manual attributed to Quintus Cicero, written for his brother Marcus.

Marcus, better known as Cicero, was then running for consul, the highest elected office. He was a lawyer from a family of no great name, with a thin military record. In Rome, that was rather like running for lifeguard without knowing how to swim.

But Marcus was a gifted speaker and lawyer, and he had a sound strategy.

Roman consuls were most often generals, and Roman campaigns could become wars. Office was won by canvassing, favors, and patronage, and sometimes by violence. The most famous campaign rally of the age was Caesar walking an army across the Rubicon.

Quintus’s advice, in Philip Freeman’s 

, has a familiar ring: promise everything to everybody, don’t leave town, learn your opponents’ weaknesses, flatter the voters shamelessly, give people hope.

Cicero had to climb a series of offices to the highest post. The ladder of offices survives here in a gentler form. A Kawakami may climb from council chamber to State House to mayor’s office on his way, perhaps, to Washington Place — without anyone bleeding.

In Honolulu the ambitious fight with briefs and motions, and the only suffering is that we have to read about it. We have become lawful to the point of banality, and the banality is the blessing.

The law that keeps the knives sheathed exacts a fee, and the fee is paid in technicalities. A society that settles its quarrels in courtrooms must sit through the arguments, the opinions, and the appeals.

In 1992, Honolulu voters amended their charter so that no council member could serve more than two consecutive four-year terms. The intent isn’t hard to read. Voters did not want anyone holding a seat for more than eight years in a row. They certainly did not want someone serving 12 years in a row.

Waters’ attorneys reply that he has not yet served two four-year terms. “It is undisputed factually that Mr. Waters has not yet been elected to serve two ‘four-year terms,’” they wrote last month, “as he has served one four-year term and one partial term that lasted three years, seven months, and twenty-five days.” The term was short, of course, because of the lawsuit Waters filed over the 2018 count.

The arithmetic is sound, and it proves nothing. A man who eats 11 and a half of a dozen donuts has not, strictly speaking, eaten a dozen.

Everyone in Honolulu knows what the voters meant, and Waters knows it best of all, because these voters are the people he has spent nearly eight years serving.

In the court of common sense, Waters would be laughed out. But in the court of law, he is owed an appeal. This is the tedium we accept in exchange for peace — better than Rome, certainly, but a citizen may be forgiven for checking his watch.

Of course, we do the same. When the technicality favors us, we praise the letter of the law and call it our right. When it favors the other fellow, we discover the spirit of the law and call him a scoundrel.

Both Ozawa and Waters are lawyers, and they know the difference between the letter and the spirit. Lofty notions tend to sink when a job is on the line.

An elected official ought to fight for the people to the full extent of the law; that is the job. There is a difference, though, between fighting for the people within the law and fighting the people with it.

Waters has spent nearly eight years styling himself a servant of the public — the empty homes tax, relief on vehicle weight taxes — and there is no reason to doubt he means it. The temptation to squeeze the last drop from a legal text is not a mark of unusual wickedness. It is what nearly anyone would feel when a career seems to hinge on a legal opinion.

Waters claims that the voters of District 4 should have a chance to decide. He’s right, and they will. But the voters in his district are not the only ones who matter. As chair of the Honolulu City Council, Waters has a duty to uphold the city charter.

We call our elected officials public servants for a reason. Councilmembers serve the people, and Honolulu’s voters gave their instruction in 1992. They said that our servants on the council should not serve for more than eight years in a row, and a servant of the people honors the people’s word by putting his own interest beneath it — which means stepping aside.

Quintus’s ultimate piece of advice to his brother was to give people hope.

Waters can spend the coming months giving Honolulu litigation instead, or he can give the people something rarer than a successful appeal: a politician who honors their will.

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<title>Tommy Waters term limits ruling: Why the Council Chair should step aside</title>

A judge ruled Monday that Tommy Waters has already served his two terms — while voters were filling out ballots bearing his name. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on the difference between fighting for the people within the law and fighting the people with it.

Tommy Waters term limits ruling: Why the Council Chair should step aside

Hawaiʻi now has more residents 65 and older than children under 18.

At statehood, the Islands were young. They are not anymore.

This did not simply happen. Some of it was planned. The man who led the planning died in April at the age of 100, after a long life of honorable service. He counted the slowing of Hawaiʻi’s growth among his proudest achievements.

Gov. George Ariyoshi led the state of Hawaiʻi for 13 years, from 1973 to 1986 — longer than anyone before or since. He belonged to the last generation that believed, without irony, that government could improve the condition of man. He dressed for the office he held: pressed suits, perfect hair, a bearing that reminded people of Kennedy. He and his wife Jean matched the dignity of the role. Today’s politicians often carry the detachment of people who half-suspect the whole thing is theater. Ariyoshi never did.

Ariyoshi was not a cynic or a schemer. He was a capable, earnest man who believed the most respected experts of his age. And the experts were wrong.

In 1968, a Stanford biologist named Paul Ehrlich published 

. It opened by declaring the battle to feed humanity already lost. Hundreds of millions would starve in the coming decade, he warned, no matter what anyone did. Four years later, the Club of Rome released a report built on a computer model. Factor in population growth, food, resource depletion, industry, and pollution, and the machine predicted total collapse. The model was treated less like a guess and more like an oracle.

The books sold millions. But beneath the charts sat one assumption: that a human being is a mouth and nothing more. The models saw people as problems, never as problem solvers. Every child arrived on the ledger with a minus sign.

Scripture starts from the opposite premise. “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him,” says Psalm 127. A blessing, not a burden.

The blessings came. The same humans the models had written off went on to breed drought-resistant crops and feed them manmade fertilizer. Famine retreated to the margins of the earth. A trucker named Malcom McLean packed cargo into standard steel boxes, and over the next 50 years the shipping container rewired world trade. Moving goods became so cheap that distance nearly stopped mattering. A farmer in Iowa could feed a family in Osaka, and a factory anywhere could serve customers everywhere.

None of this was in the model. A computer could extend a curve. But it could not foresee the impact of a steel box.

Where the prophets were believed most completely, the results were darkest. China’s One Child Policy enforced the arithmetic with forced abortions and sterilizations.

Hawaiʻi’s response was gentler, and the worry behind it was not lunacy. The Islands grew fast after the war — new subdivisions, new hotels climbing out of the sand at Waikīkī. A reasonable person standing in the governor’s office in 1975, watching the curves climb, could honestly ask how much the Islands could carry.

Ariyoshi’s answer was “managed growth.” He used no coercion. Instead, he built a State Plan that set targets for slowing population growth. And he wielded a Land Use Commission that kept most land closed to building. What land remained was wrapped in red tape that slowed development to a tree snail’s pace.

The plan worked the way a tourniquet works. Growth slowed, as did homebuilding. The supply of houses fell behind the number of families who needed them. Prices did what prices always do when many people chase few homes. Working families were priced out, then pushed out — to Las Vegas, to Texas, to anywhere the math still worked. The state that set out to slow the growth of its population ended by exporting its children.

Ariyoshi never disowned the project. In 2009 he published a short book looking back on 50 years of statehood. In it he wrote with evident satisfaction that annual population growth had “slowed to about 1.5 percent, at least partly due to managed growth policies.” In the same pages he looked ahead: by 2035, he projected, our state’s population would be 1.6 million people.

Ariyoshi was optimistic. Hawaiʻi’s population has declined now in five of the past six years and is below its peak of 1.45 million. The model missed again, this time in the other direction.

The planners who could not foresee abundance also could not foresee the empty cradle. Today, Hawaiʻi has nearly twice the population it had in 1972, yet has 

The old ideas did not die when the famines failed to arrive on schedule. They split. One branch grew more radical. There are people today who describe humanity as a cancer on the planet, who greet falling birth rates as good news, who tally each new child chiefly as a carbon cost. That is the same arithmetic with the mask off: People as problems, all the way down.

The other branch grew respectable, and it lives closer to home. The staunchest defenders of Ariyoshi’s machinery today are not socialists. They are homeowners whose home values owe much to the scarcity his policies built. Many are conservatives who distrust government in every arena except land use. They praise the free market on Tuesday and testify against the apartment project next door on Wednesday. Managed growth survives because scarcity has shareholders.

Ariyoshi deserves better than blame and worse than a shrine. He placed too much faith in academics to predict the future and too much faith in the state to control it. In this he was a man of his time.

Every generation believes some prophecy. Ours may be the conviction that decline is destiny — that the young will leave, that the schools will empty, that the best a government can do is manage the shrinking.

There is another way to plan. Build as if children are a blessing. Open land for the families we hope to welcome rather than ration it to keep out the ones we fear. Build the houses, the classrooms, and the roads for a Hawaiʻi that grows, and let families, churches, and builders do the work the models never accounted for.

A state that plans for decline will get it. A state that receives the next generation as a gift may be surprised by what that gift brings with it.

The Islands were young once. They could be young again.

Empty playground

<title>Hawaiʻi population decline: How George Ariyoshi’s managed growth policies shaped today’s…</title>

George Ariyoshi dressed for the office he held and trusted the most respected experts of his age — and the experts were wrong. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on the population prophecy that failed twice.

Hawaiʻi population decline: How George Ariyoshi’s managed growth policies shaped today’s crisis

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Decisions made by city and county councilmembers impact the quality of the roads you drive on, how your neighborhood is zoned, what your property taxes cost, how easy it is to obtain a driver’s license, and more. While Aloha State Daily is based in Honolulu, I’ll cover the four counties and their governments statewide. I aim to hold civic leaders accountable for their actions and keep readers informed on the impacts to their daily lives. 

I grew up in Virginia and received a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University. I got my start in journalism covering everything from crime and court to the state Legislature at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska. My time at the News-Miner taught me that local journalism is all about people: telling their stories and reporting news most relevant to them.

As a newcomer to the Islands, I am looking forward to getting to know the Rainbow State and its residents.

Haley Lehman

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