Drive west on Hawaii Kai Drive past the 7-Eleven and the Hele station, and there's a stretch between Pepeekeo and Hahaione streets where the road slows down without a stoplight to explain why. A low two-story building sits back from the curb under a canopy of monkeypod trees, quiet enough that most people assume it's been empty for years. It hasn't been. A preschool still operates inside it right now, tucked under the same monkeypod trees that have shaded that lot since the building went up more than fifty years ago.
What that building actually is, who owns it, and why nobody in Honolulu government or on the Bishop Estate side has said what happens next is one of the more interesting pieces of unfinished business in Hawaii Kai this year. It's also a good lesson in how little the average passerby actually knows about the ground under their daily errands.
The building belonged to JAIMS, the Japan-America Institute of Management Science, an international graduate business school that trained executives from both countries for more than five decades before winding down operations in 2024. The campus is modest by Oahu standards, a 35,000-square-foot, two-story structure on nearly six acres, but it was built with intention. It has 11 classrooms, and in nearly every one of them, the view out the window is a monkeypod tree. Twenty-four of them stand on the property, planted decades before "view plane" became a phrase anyone in Hahaione Valley needed to know.
When JAIMS closed, the building didn't go dark all at once. An international preschool kept its lease and is still running classes there today, which is part of why so many residents assume the site is simply an active school rather than a property in limbo.
The reason nobody has announced a plan for this site isn't zoning. It's ownership. Kamehameha Schools owns the land, but the two-story building sitting on it belongs to Fujitsu, the Japanese technology company. A Hawaii charitable trust holds the ground, a Tokyo-based corporation holds the structure on top of it, and neither one has said much publicly about what happens when the current arrangement runs out.
The JAIMS parcel isn't sitting alone either. It's one of three adjoining commercial properties Kamehameha Schools controls along that stretch of Hawaii Kai Drive, and all three leases run on the same clock.
| Parcel | Land Owner | Current Occupant | Lease Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| JAIMS campus, 6660 Hawaii Kai Drive | Kamehameha Schools | Preschool, building owned by Fujitsu | 2028 |
| 7-Eleven and Hele gas station | Kamehameha Schools | 7-Eleven, Hele | 2028 |
| Koko Head Plaza, the building between the two | Kamehameha Schools | Commercial tenants | 2028 |
That shared 2028 deadline is the real story here. It's not a rumor or a resident's guess. It's the actual expiration written into the leases, and it means the entire stretch between Pepeekeo and Hahaione streets, roughly eight acres of Hahaione Valley's commercial frontage, comes up for a decision at the same time.
This spring gave residents their first real signal that someone in city government was paying attention. In late March 2026, a $34 million line item appeared in Honolulu's proposed capital budget, earmarked to let the city buy the six-acre JAIMS parcel outright under its tax map key, 3-9-038:002. For a few weeks, it looked like the city might simply own the problem and decide its future through a public process.
Then, on April 24, Council Chair Tommy Waters pulled the item. He pointed to the cost of the city's recovery from the Kona low storms and a budget year he called too tight to justify the purchase, though he said he intends to bring the idea back during next year's budget cycle. Waters has floated the idea of turning the site into a first responder center or a community center if an acquisition ever goes through, but for now it stays in private hands.
What that month taught residents is that this decision isn't moving through Honolulu's planning department on any predictable track. It's tied to whatever the city's budget looks like in any given year, which means it can appear on a worksheet in March and vanish by the end of April.
While the city's interest came and went, a resident-led group called Hahaʻione Advocates for Respectful Development, known locally as HARD, has been the one steady presence pushing for information. The group formed in November 2024, not long after JAIMS closed, and has since gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition asking Kamehameha Schools to preserve the building and its trees rather than clear the lot for denser commercial or residential use.
Their concerns go beyond nostalgia for the campus. Hahaione Valley has one road in and out, and HARD member Tom Cooper has pointed to wildfire evacuation risk as a real planning concern if the site were ever redeveloped at scale.
"There is only one way in or out of the valley."
That single-access geography, combined with worry over the view plane looking out from the valley toward the ocean, has shaped everything HARD has asked for. Their preferred outcome isn't no development. It's a community center that could keep the preschool, add space for a charter school or nonprofit tenants, and leave the monkeypod canopy standing.
In May, HARD got its clearest win of the year so far: the first public open house ever held inside the JAIMS building. On May 9, residents who had driven past that building for years finally walked its halls, saw the classrooms with their tree views, and talked with organizers about what could come next. Cheryl Park, one of HARD's organizers, put it simply.
"Many people have driven past this historic building and never really known what it did."
State Senator Chris Lee, whose district includes Hawaii Kai, attended and said he'd like to see the space go to a charter school or another educational tenant if Kamehameha Schools is open to it, calling it a possible fit for a community that already values the building's history.
As of late summer 2026, nothing has been decided. Kamehameha Schools has said publicly that it's taking the time to weigh the site's long-term future and that it welcomes continued conversation with the council and the community, but it hasn't committed to a direction. The leases on all three parcels still run through 2028, and Waters has signaled he'll try the city acquisition again when next year's budget talks open.
Here's the sequence as it's actually played out this year, worth having straight the next time it comes up at a Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board meeting or over a fence with a neighbor:
So the next time you drive past that stand of monkeypod trees between the 7-Eleven and Hahaione Elementary, you're not looking at something abandoned. You're looking at a preschool still holding class, a two-year lease clock still running, and a resident group that has done more to get answers this year than any government process has managed. Nobody knows yet what that corner of Hawaii Kai Drive looks like in 2029. For now, it's still exactly what it's been for months: six quiet acres, one unresolved question, and a lot of people paying closer attention than the empty parking lot would suggest.
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually happening in your own neighborhood before it shows up in a mailer, that's the kind of local detail Eric Olson tracks across Hawaii Kai and the rest of Windward and East Oahu. Let's connect if you ever want to talk about what's changing in your corner of the island.
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