Goodbye to International Market Place

International Market Place has stood in the heart of Waikiki for 57 years, but Tuesday it will start to disappear as demolition work begins to clear the way for a new $350 million open-air shopping mall.

Officials representing the project landowner, its development partner and government officials held a blessing Monday to say goodbye to the retail landmark, which largely closed in December, and to look ahead to the planned new attraction expected to revitalize a central part of Waikiki upon opening in spring 2016.

"This is really a historic day for all of us," said Rick Tsu­ji­mura, chairman of the board of trustees for Queen Emma Land Co., which owns the marketplace. "The International Market Place has been an iconic fixture in Waikiki. We should treasure those memories, but they should not constrain our future."

Queen Emma Land partnered with Michigan-based retail developer Taubman Centers Inc. to redevelop the marketplace site along with land under the adjacent Waikiki Town Center and Mira­mar Hotel into a three-story mall housing about 75 tenants and a 700-stall parking garage.

The 360,000-square-foot mall anchored by an 80,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue store is designed to encircle a historic ban­yan tree that is near the front of the property and has put down root structures descending from more than a dozen major limbs.

Local arborist Steve Nimz estimates that the tree is at least 125 years old and has a canopy stretching 200 by 400 feet. "They’re losing significant retail space," he said of the developer. "They went, in my opinion, above and beyond."

Three exceptional monkeypod trees on the property will be relocated and also included in the new project, Nimz said.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who recalled admiring a treehouse in the ban­yan as a kid, imagined that being at the new mall on one of its upper levels will give people a new perspective of the old tree — sort of like hanging out with the myna birds.

"This is going to be a cool place," he said.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie fondly recalled buying an airbrushed T-shirt from early International Market Place vendor Rick Ralston, who went on to establish the retail chain Crazy Shirts. Abercrombie, however, also said people should not be trapped in the past.

"Everyone in Hawaii is going to be very, very proud with what takes place here," he said, adding that Queen Emma Land is a culturally sensitive landowner.

William Taubman, the developer’s chief operating officer, said he is pleased that his firm is a partner with Queen Emma Land and a member of the community.

Taubman Centers is leasing the site from Queen Emma Land. The arrangement will provide a renewed and sustainable income source for the Queen’s Medical Center, a nonprofit affiliate of the landowner.

Queen Emma Land solicited development partners to lease the marketplace site in 2008, and tentatively selected Taubman and real estate finance partner Coast Wood Capital Group LLC in 2010. A formal lease agreement was signed last year.

Project officials estimate that the new marketplace will provide about 1,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs related to retail. The permanent job count represents about four times the number of jobs at the old marketplace, Waikiki Town Center and the Mira­mar.