HONOLULU -- The city shut down construction at a Keeaumoku Street complex in a case city officials called "extraordinary."

Inspectors visited the site three times in one month, issuing orders to stop work each time because of illegal construction, but the work continued anyway.

The construction happened on a 3.5-acre parcel of land on Keeaumoku Street, bordered by Rycroft and Liona streets. A South Korean investment group purchased it two years ago for $49 million.

The owners of Keeaumoku Plaza have been cited for repeatedly performing construction without any building permits. The permits are important to ensure electrical, plumbing and other construction work is safe and built to minimum specifications.

Crews used concrete Thursday afternoon to construct an addition to one of the buildings at Keeaumoku Plaza, a sprawling complex of low-rise buildings that includes restaurants, bars and small retailers.

This job had a building permit, and was legal, but several others here have repeatedly been cited for illegal construction work.

Case in point: Extensive renovations to a Korean barbeque restaurant. A picture shows construction work going on in September when a city building inspector showed up and found no building permit, and ordered them to stop work.

"Anytime you do construction work or you're working with the electrical system or plumbing system, you're required to come in for a building permit and they were initiating work without the proper permits in place," city Planning and Permitting Director David Tanoue said.

However, construction crews kept working. Photos showed both on the restaurant and re-doing a neighboring wooden building. So, the city slapped the owners with two more stop work orders in October, but construction continued anyway.

"But once we got to the civil fines, that's when they stopped working, doing the illegal work at that point," Tanoue said.

Tanoue said the owner, Cuzco Development USA, will face fines of $50 a day that are adding up until Cuzco obtains building permits for the work.

Owner Dae-Youn Byun declined an on-camera interview but told KITV he was not familiar with Oahu building laws, since he is from South Korea. He apologized for what he called a "mistake," and said he is now following city and state building laws.

"I think if you're going to thumb your nose at authorities and ignore issues to stop work, that's a problem," said Kyle Chock, of Pacific Resource Partnership, an advocacy group for unionized contractors and the carpenter's union.

"And if you have unpermitted, unlicensed activity happening, you don't give the authorities any opportunity to come in and inspect the job and make sure that things are happening properly," Chock said.

The owners also blamed part of these problems on a restaurant tenant, who they claimed they told to stop work after the first city citation for doing work without a permit, but the construction crews kept working.

A building owner is responsible for any construction work inside, city officials said. The city may ask the owner to tear out part or all of the work so it can inspect wiring and other work before issuing a building permit.