For months, as living conditions at 1136 Union Mall descended from squalor to violence, tenants have sought help from city officials, the police, city council and neighborhood board members, the courts — anyone who might help — to no avail.
Now the building’s former owner and lender, who holds a legal interest in the building, is asking a state judge to step in with what might be the only relatively quick solution: put an independent third party in control of the building while the lender seeks to take over the property through foreclosure.
Dozens of residents still live in unpermitted homes in former office suites at 1136 Union Mall, in the heart of Honolulu’s central business district, near the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and headquarters of major companies like Hawaiian Telcom and Finance Factors…