690 Pohukaina was a cancelled skyscraper project located in the Kaka'ako district of Honolulu, Hawaii. Originally planned as a 60-story residential skyscraper standing at a height of , it was projected to become the tallest building in the state, surpassing Hawaii's current tallest building, the Century Center, which stands at .
Furthermore, the proposed skyscraper would have become the tallest building in the entire region of the Polynesian Triangle, surpassing Seascape in Auckland, New Zealand, which stands at . However, the ambitious development ultimately did not move forward as originally conceived and was replaced by alternative plans due to regulatory shifts and height restrictions in the Kaka'ako district.
History The project began as a prominent transit-oriented development proposal in the Kaka'ako district of Honolulu, Hawaii. Initial master planning envisioned a landmark mixed-use community centered around high-density residential towers. The conceptual design famously featured a towering skyscraper planned to reach across 60 floors.
As the proposal advanced, it faced public scrutiny and regulatory hurdles regarding the sheer scale of the high-rise. Local planning authorities raised questions about neighborhood infrastructure capacity, while strict regional height limits enforced by regulatory bodies created significant boundaries for the original design.
Due to these mounting constraints and changing development parameters, the initial high-rise vision was eventually cancelled in its original form. The grand skyscraper design was deemed unviable under existing urban planning guidelines, forcing developers to scrap the high-altitude architecture.
Following the cancellation of the original concept, the initiative was restructured to prioritize pressing regional housing needs. The redesigned project was scaled back to comply with local height regulations and neighborhood integration goals, reducing the planned structure to a tower and eventually moving forward under the name Pohukaina Commons.
See also List of tallest buildings in Honolulu
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