Ko Olina Resort & Marina residents and guests should soon have more restaurants, retail stores and their first gas station as part of a new project at the West O'ahu resort.

Local developer Honu Group announced plans to build a small commercial center that will significantly expand shopping options within the community, which has grown with hundreds of condominiums and time-share units over the last several years.

A gas station also is part of the project, which is dubbed Ko Olina Station and is to be located just past the resort's entry gate adjacent to the old OR&L Railway tracks on land leased from the resort.

Honu Group said it expects to begin construction by early next year and finish in early 2008. Prospective tenants, some of whom Honu said have committed to the project, are not yet being disclosed.

"This is the first commercial community center within Ko Olina," said Mona Abadir, Honu Group chief operating officer. "We think there is a lot of pent-up demand. Our goal is to provide resort residents and guests additional services and amenities to fulfill their needs and enhance the total resort experience."

The project is the latest addition planned for the resort, which has been gradually filling out over the last seven years after development stalled in the early 1990s.

Ko Olina originally was envisioned in the mid-1970s by local developer Herbert Horita with 10 hotels, four lagoons, a golf course, marina and 3,000 homes. Horita completed one hotel, the lagoons, golf course and 280 townhomes before development stalled.

Another local developer, Jeff Stone, acquired the resort with partners in 1999 and revised the master plan toward lower-density development.

Since then, Ko Olina added the marina and has attracted a 750-unit Marriott time-share that is about half complete, as well as several hundred vacation homes.

Other planned projects include a beachfront condo by Centex Destination Properties and a beachfront hotel-condo by Crescent Heights.

Stone also was granted up to $75 million in state tax credits to develop an aquarium at the resort, but that project has encountered planning difficulties since 2003 and is not under construction.

Honu Group and its principals, Abadir, Tom Applegate and Andy Smith, have been involved in about two dozen retail and resort projects around the country, including King Kalakaua Plaza and 2100 Kalakaua in Waikiki. The firm in May purchased the shopping center at Kaua'i's Princeville Resort from a partnership led by Stone.