Hawaii’s Gov. Josh Green is moving to bring Japanese transit know-how into Honolulu’s Skyline rail project, with the state negotiating an agreement with Tokyo-based Tokyu Group aimed at increasing ridership and using station-area development to spur affordable housing.
Green’s administration has framed the effort as part of a broader effort to strengthen trade and investment ties with Japan, including seeking support for infrastructure funding. An anticipated memorandum of understanding being negotiated between the state and Tokyu Group would formalize work Tokyu has already been doing as part of an advisory committee Green created to help guide transit-oriented development, especially housing, along Oʻahu’s rail corridor.
Green said his discussions in Japan shifted direction after meetings with Tokyu executives. “It kind of knocked my socks off — to see what can be done with serious investment and serious planning,” Green said, describing a visit to the company’s achievements in Shibuya. “I thought I was going there originally, to talk about tourism,” Green said of his first trip. “And what I realized after several meetings in Japan, I was actually talking about partnerships.”
Officials have pointed to the scale of Honolulu’s rail spending and the challenge of drawing riders, citing public response that has been “underwhelming.” The system has attracted about 11,000-12,000 daily riders on weekdays and far fewer on weekends, while officials hope the rail will draw 84,000 daily riders when its extension to Ala Moana Center is completed. Green’s vision centers on promoting housing development around train stations, backed by the idea that transit-area homes and amenities can increase ridership and reduce reliance on cars.
Tokyu’s strategy, according to the administration, is built around developing not only housing but also commercial and public amenities that pull passengers from elsewhere. Part of the Hawaii approach involves modular homes that can be built quickly and at lower cost, alongside traditionally built structures. Green has said the state needs housing to support the next generation, adding, “You can build many thousands of homes, condos, apartments, basically in and around hubs, and you can generate enough economic activity to justify building the homes,” while also stressing, “And you need the homes, of course, for our next generation.”
Green’s advisory committee on transit-oriented development, created in July 2024, includes Tokyu transit-oriented development expert Masafumi Ota and Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation executive director Lori Kahikina, along with state planning director Mary Alice Evans and developers Stanford Carr and BJ Kobayashi. The committee is chaired by Paul Yonamine, chairman emeritus of Central Pacific Bank and former president of IBM’s Japan operations, and has been tasked with promoting “affordable housing, mixed-use community development, and resilient communities along Oʻahu’s Rail line.”
In October, Ota presented a detailed proposal to the committee, including ideas for integrating development with the rail line at the western end of Skyline. The presentation outlines what Tokyu calls “ensen,” high-density, mixed-used neighborhoods built near stations, paired with bus links reaching into more suburban areas. It also focuses on specific stations at the rail’s western end—Honouliuli at Hoopili, Keoneae at the University of Hawaiʻi, West Oʻahu and Kualakaa at East Kapolei—and discusses bus terminals that would help link stations to surrounding communities. The materials also point to track design elements that officials say were not part of the system’s original concept, including extra parallel lengths of track at certain stations that could let some trains operate as express lines to cut travel time for passengers traveling longer distances.
The proposal has found support among some local development leadership. Carr, who is redeveloping land around Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium, praised Ota’s input, saying, “They know how to do things right,” and, “We’re very fortunate to have them participating.”
On the ground, riders and residents described both the limits of current station-area development and the kinds of upgrades they say would help. Matt Cavert, a professor at UH-West Oʻahu, said he uses the rail and buses to run errands and meets his wife for dinner near the line once a week, while saying amenities closer to stations—along with pedestrian access from the UH-West Oʻahu stop to Pearl Highlands and Pearlridge shopping centers—would be a plus. Brian Beland, a retired Marine who takes the rail and bus to the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Fitness Center, said one straightforward need is access to bathrooms at stations, adding that he is repeatedly told to call the mayor.
The modular-housing effort is also being broadened through additional Japanese participation. Serving on the TOD advisory committee is Ryuji Yamaguchi of Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd., a firm that recently completed a modular-housing project in Toyota City with energy self-sufficient homes using solar, battery storage and energy management systems. The state has also cited Daiwa House experience in Hawaiʻi, including helping set up 50 modular homes for people impacted by the Maui wildfires, and Green has said working with Daiwa House alongside traditional builders could help the state speed up housing development along rail.
Green said the modular approach could help accelerate housing starts: “We could finally get ahead of some of our housing shortage, because we could accelerate some housing developments,” adding, “We could continue to do the great work that regular builders do, and the combo gets us there, especially along rail.” The administration says Hawaiʻi’s construction trade unions are on board with modular housing as part of the plan.
Andrew Pereira, a spokesman for Pacific Resource Partnership, described modular homes as a fit for the builders and contractors the organization represents, including the Hawaiʻi Regional Council of Carpenters and more than 250 contractors. Pereira said the Daiwa House homes “make sense” partly because of the design and shipping method, describing how the homes are “packed flat in containers to be assembled by contractors in Hawaiʻi” and that the layout allows inspections during construction. He contrasted the units with some previous pre-built emergency shelter structures for Maui wildfire survivors, saying, “a more quality product and ensures that the homebuyer is getting something durable that will last.”
The administration’s outreach also reflects lessons from earlier waves of Japanese investment and the public concerns they provoked. Cameron Deptula, a special assistant to Green working with the TOD committee while pursuing an MBA at the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, focused on business relations and wrote in a study of Japan-Hawaiʻi business ties that capital inflows in the 1980s created “inflationary pressure” in Hawaii’s housing market and heightened apprehension about foreign presence. Deptula pointed to a case study involving Genshiro Kawamoto, describing the worry residents expressed that Japanese firms would discriminate or bring in their own workers for jobs.
Deptula’s account emphasizes that today’s engagement should better leverage foreign investment opportunities while integrating local business growth. In the memo’s described approach, while Tokyu might invest in Skyline TOD, the plan envisions the company working as a co-developer that allows local firms to take the lead. The administration also anticipates the memorandum of understanding being aspirational rather than binding with financial commitments from either side, as Green weighs how Japanese expertise could translate to station-area development in Honolulu.
A tourism-to-partnership shift has been central to Green’s pitch for the talks, as he said in Japan: “I like the idea of partnering — if I’m going to partner with international partners — with Japan.”