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Centennial Park, a public-private partnership
between the city and the Rotary Club of Honolulu
to build a long-awaited
park in Waikiki, is headed back to the City Council
for a vote.
The Council was expected at its April 17 meeting to
formalize a 2016 public-private partnership between the city and the Rotary Club of Honolulu to transform the lot into Centennial Park — which would pay homage to Rotary and offer residents and visitors some respite from Waikiki’s density. However, after hearing objections, the Council referred the measure to the city’s parks committee for a hearing Tuesday.
The city’s promise to put a park on the lot goes back 16 years. But the community push to secure that pledge goes back to 1998, when the late Bill Sweatt first championed turning the derelict
lot behind his condominium into a place where his grandchildren could play.
Some Waikiki residents and Rotarians are anxious
to get going on the project. However, others have complained that they don’t like a circa 2017-2018 plan to allow Hawaiian Electric Co. to add an electric switching station 30 feet wide by 15 feet long by 10.5 feet high to Centennial Park. There also have been concerns expressed about plans from the Waikiki Transportation Management Association to add a traffic staging area where tour buses and similar vehicles could wait to pick up passengers.
But few of these concerns were raised at the hearing, so the Council’s parks committee recommended passage of the measure, which goes to a full Council vote May 8 at 9 a.m. at Honolulu Hale.
Council member Heidi Tsuneyoshi, who chairs the city’s parks committee, said, “I want to thank the Rotary Club for your perseverance in sticking with this project. It has been a long time coming, and I do believe it’s going to be a great benefit for area residents.”
