A gleaming new place in Waikiki

The International Market Place in Waikiki reopens Thursday, polished to a gleam to reflect the desires of the well-off tourist.

There is 345,000 square feet of upscale stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue on Kalakaua Avenue. There are 75 stores and 10 restaurants, including some from big names like Roy Yamaguchi and Michael Mina.

Some of us might feel nostalgia for the old market, with little stalls crammed together offering cheap trinkets and pearls by the oyster.

Or not.

Of course, there’s still the 160-year-old banyan tree in the courtyard — a dignified reminder of when the Waikiki jungle was a little less sophisticated.

Welcome to land of orange netting

As solutions go, it’s hardly elegant, let alone permanent or admirable.

But the concrete planter boxes installed on the triangular traffic median at Atkinson Drive and Ala Moana Boulevard should keep a tenacious homeless couple from reoccupying the public site — for now.

The couple had inhabited the busy state median for the better part of a year, a highly visible reminder of the futility of government to get a handle on the problem of homelessness.

Pedestrians have now regained full, safe and clean access to the median crossing. The couple seems to have moved on. Let’s hope the same can be said for the orange barrier netting that went up when the planters did. This cannot be the new normal.