First Hawaiian Bank has headquarters that floats

I was reading former First Hawaiian Bank CEO Walter Dods’ 2015 book recently. “Yes! A Memoir of Modern Hawaii” has fascinating insights into his career. For instance, when he was young, his goal in life was to become proprietor of the Aina Haina Service Station.

What I found particularly interesting were his thoughts on building the First Hawaiian Center, the tallest building in Hawaii at 429 feet. It opened in 1996.

“I knew there were those who had a lot of affection for the old First Hawaiian building,” Dods wrote. “Before we went ahead we explored 37 different options, many of which included retaining the old Damon building.”

The old building was on no historic register and wasn’t in good shape, Dods said. “In the end it just didn’t make economic, creative or architectural sense, and one by one we abandoned those ideas,” he said. “I concluded we needed a cutting-edge building, something completely fresh.”

Because of a recession at the time, the best architects in the United States were interested in the project. Dods interviewed many of them and, in the end, selected Bill Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates of New York.

“He didn’t just talk about the building he envisioned,” Dods said, “but also about its place in Honolulu, its relationship with the mountains and the ocean.

“His design was organic to the place where it would be built. In fact, the rough sketch he showed us ended up remarkably similar to what was finally built. I knew within five minutes that he was our man.”

Pedersen suggested the bank petition the City Council to rezone downtown to allow for a taller structure than the 350-foot limit allowed.

“A higher tower would have more open space at ground level and a more interesting building design.” It would be a taller, skinnier building, with the same amount of floor space.

The City Council agreed to the rezoning. “The rezoning applies to the entire downtown area but it will be a long time before anyone else attempts something this ambitious. There just aren’t the opportunities,” Dods believes.

Pedersen came to meet with First Hawaiian executives in the downtown headquarters dining room. He drew some ideas on a napkin for how the building might look.

“He wanted First Hawaiian Center to be street-friendly, so he proposed setting it back from King Street. On that napkin he also came up with the idea of the ‘prow’ leaning across Bishop Street toward Bank of Hawaii. He felt the aggressive prow would ‘send a message’ to Bank of Hawaii.

“Prow” is a nautical term for the front of a ship that cuts through the water. In the case of First Hawaiian Center, the west-facing side is angled upward noticeably.

Dods and I walked to King and Maunakea streets in Chinatown to see the First Hawaiian Center from a distance.

“This is my favorite view of the building,” Dods said. “Originally, it was to point directly at Bank of Hawaii, but we shifted the prow to face down the middle of King Street.”

First Hawaiian did not own the entire block and made arrangements quickly with two stakeholders. Finance Factors was willing to sell, but it wanted something to sweeten the deal: the bank’s old 1930s-era scale that had been in the downtown branch for years.

“The boss at Finance Factors, Wendell Pang, used it often to check his weight and wouldn’t agree to sell us his parcel unless they got to take the scale with them to their new headquarters. (We replaced it with a modern one in the new branch.)”

The original building was demolished on a Sunday in January 1994. “My daughter Lauren was supposed to press the button,” Dods said. “At first, she didn’t press hard enough and nothing happened. I can tell you that there were some stricken faces for a moment. But then she pressed harder, and with a roar, the building came down!

“Dust rolled up Bishop Street and covered police cars there to keep the crowds away. It was exhilarating.” You can see it from several angles on YouTube.

One construction complication was that there is a big underwater stream running almost directly down Bishop Street, from the mountains to the harbor. The building was designed to handle that.

“That part of the construction was fascinating,” Dods said. “The same folks who make the Seiko watch had perfected a drilling procedure in Japan.

“Instead of pounding piles for months to the bedrock, Seiko created a five-story deep soil/clay solid wall around the property so the water could be pumped around it.

“The bottom of the building is a concrete slab that floats on the water table. Hundreds of steel cables drop down 60 to 100 feet through the water and slush to the bedrock below.”

The building floats and is held in place by those rock anchors. The building moves, Dods says. “If you are out on the 30th floor prow overlooking Bishop Street on a super windy day you can get seasick. You can feel the movement that much.”

The parking garage is five stories down. Once you get down to the water table, the cost of going down farther was $45,000 an inch.

Dods could often be found on the construction site, wearing a hard hat. A crane towered over the site and was extended every now and then as the building grew. The workers took out all the bolts and jacked it up.

“The wind has to be less than 10 or 12 miles an hour because, for a few moments, there is nothing holding it together. It has to be balanced so they can add another section and then re-bolted in as the building goes up. Now that really amazed me.”

Dods asked the operator if he could experience that close up. He had to climb a ladder from halfway up the building, then cross a tiny walkway to the crane.

“Now remember this is the tallest building in Honolulu — 429 feet — but the crane is higher than the building. I could see Molokai through the Kaimuki dip.”

Dods sat in the cab while they jacked it up and added a segment. “Ironically, now, when I stand near the edge of the building, my knees shake and I have to move back. But at that point, it didn’t bother me.”

When Denny Watts, president of Fletcher Pacific Construction, found out that Dods had been allowed into the cab, he threatened to fire the manager. “He didn’t feel it was the proper place for the CEO, who is paying the construction bills, to be up there.

“I had to go see Denny and tell him it wasn’t the guy’s fault. I had pressured him.”

Dods and several others went to France to select the limestone for the building. The quarry was outside of Lyon. There are thousands of variations in the colors.

“They have shown us samples, but we wanted to make sure what we saw was representative of those examples. Seeing a six-inch sample is one thing, but it’s another to see 10 to 20 feet and get the flavor of it. The architect selected the colors, patterns and materials, but we wanted to go there and absolutely confirm it was right.”

They also went to Italy to select the marble. “We stayed in Portofino close to where the famous Carrara marble is mined. If you look at the First Hawaiian Center lobby and main branch floor, all of the marble you see came from this one cave that they have been mining since nearly the time of Christ,” Dods said.

“On the way up into the mountains our host pointed out a faint roadway used in ancient times to transport marble from the quarry to build St. Peter’s Basilica. Carrara marble was used by Michelangelo to carve the statue of David.

“We were looking for a particular stone with streaks. We got to the site and went into a cave. The workers took a little bottle of water and squirted it onto the stone. When the water hit, it showed the veins in the rock for us to select.

“It may seem that we went to a lot of trouble over these kinds of details, but I wanted it to be a first-class project. The added cost was only about 10 percent. To me, good taste makes good sense. If you can get the best, go for the best.

“The building impacts what people think about the bank overall,” Dods concludes. “Market research later told us that we were now considered to be a more modern, progressive bank. Our reputation had actually changed and the employees felt different. There’s a value to the brand that can’t be measured in dollars.”

Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@yahoo.com.