With excellent weather, good surf conditions and unexpected ease in removing rock walls, officials from the state Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands have high hopes for the Waikiki sand renewal project that began Monday, a spokesman said Friday.

"The week went really well," said Andy Bohlander, a shoreline specialist with the office. "It really has been good."

There will be intermittent closing of the east Kuhio Beach Park swim basin and surrounding beaches beginning Tuesday and for the duration of the three-month project.

A manager at a hotel nearest the Kuhio Beach Park closures said Friday that he doesn’t know much about the long-term plan for the project, but for now he’s not concerned.

"I haven’t heard any comments back from the guests, so I’m assuming everything is OK," said Chip Crosby, general manager at the Aston Waikiki Circle Hotel. "No guests have come by and said anything negative about it."

Farther down the beach, a business operator in front of the Westin Moana Surfrider said he’s not anticipating problems when the work gets closer to his hotel.

"It will go quick, and they’ll only make the beach better," said Didi Robello, who runs Aloha Beach Services, a 50-year-old beach stand.

But Jim and Rosemary Jordan, who have been year-round residents of Waikiki for 15 years, lost their favorite place in the sand when the project started.

"They took our usual spot," Jim Jordan said Friday from his new spot just behind the orange netting hung with signs saying, "Danger, Construction Area, Keep Out."

The barricaded area from the Kapahulu groin to the rock wall nearest the statue of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole will serve as a staging area for equipment and the "dewatering basin" for offshore sand being pumped from the ocean floor.

The $2.3 million project is expected to be completed by March 31.

Bohlander said the so-called construction phase — when the sand is deposited on the beach through an underground pipe to minimize closures — will begin as scheduled Jan. 23.

Still, the Jordans worry that the state’s track record for construction projects will push completion far past the deadline.

"It always takes longer than they say," Jim Jordan said.

An underground pipe is scheduled to be installed Tuesday. Only 200 feet of beachfront will be closed at a time once sand-pumping is under way.

"That’ll be the last of the real disruptive days," Bohlander said regarding the pipe installation.

The project will restore 1,730 feet of shoreline between the west end of the Kuhio Beach swim basin and the groin between the Royal Hawaiian and Sheraton Waikiki hotels to its 1985 width, an additional 37 feet wider on average.

Robello said he remembers a time when 40 more feet of beach stretched out in front of his stand.

"That was in the mid-1980s before Hurricane Iwa," he said. "Just look at how packed the beach is now."

Workers spent Tuesday and Wednesday tearing out two deteriorating rock walls near Kuhio Beach so the underground pipe can be installed. Bohlander said that was expected to take a week but was finished in two days.

"That ended up being a really great start for us," he said.

Beachgoers have been respectful of the closures, and Bohlander said his office hasn’t received any complaints regarding noise or the project in general.

"Everybody wants the beach back, and this is the best way to do it," he said.