Waikiki public parking lot sits empty due to discreet signage

Waikiki is notorious for its lack of parking, especially inexpensive parking — yet a city lot with 50 stalls in the heart of the tourist district is sitting empty.

The inexplicable situation goes back to a 2015 agreement between the city and PACREP 2 LLC, developer of The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Waikiki Beach, to temporarily shut down the adjacent Kuhio-Kaiolu municipal parking lot for a construction staging area.

The Ritz-Carlton developers agreed to pay the city $750,000 over four years for use of the lot, make improvements to the lot when finished and reopen it by March 31, 2019.

It reopened Dec. 5, eight months late, without any signs indicating it was available for public parking.

It has since sat mostly empty.

To enter the lot, drivers have to turn makai off Kuhio Avenue into what appears to be a driveway for Ritz-Carlton Residences.

Once drivers turn into the driveway, they see a dead-end sign and the hotel’s service entrance, with no indication of the public parking beyond. To get to the public parking, drivers have to go under a portion of the Ritz-Carlton building.

“If they marketed this lot correctly, it would be full 24/7,” said Waikiki Neighborhood Board member Jeff Merz, who is an urban planner. “It’s in a prime location, but they couldn’t have made it less user-friendly. There’s just no way that you would know there’s public parking back there,” Merz said.

Parking at the metered stalls costs $1.50 per hour with a five-hour maximum. The lot is open 24/7.

A single green parking sign was posted Feb. 23 on Kuhio Street at the entrance to the lot, but the sign, erected in cooperation with the Waikiki Transportation Management Association, is easy to miss. Drivers who are heading Diamond Head may be confused as the sign is past the turning point near Kaiolu Street.

“There’s no excuse” for “such an unacceptable situation,” especially in a community that badly needs parking and struggles with excess traffic, Merz said.

Not only are drivers missing out on convenient, inexpensive parking in Waikiki, but the city is missing out on a potential revenue source.

The $750,000 that Ritz-Carlton’s developers paid for use of the lot for four years was already a discount to what the city was earning from the parking stalls. The original 58 stalls could generate up to $762,120 a year if every stall was occupied 24 hours a day.

The city is also out more than $440,000 because of the eight-month delay in opening the parking lot. The lack of use since the Dec. 5 reopening could add as much as $150,000 to the city’s loss. Finally, the newly reconfigured lot with eight fewer parking stalls means the potential loss of another $288 per day in parking meter payments.

City Department of Transportation Services spokesman Travis Otas said that “in prioritizing the reopening of the lot for public parking, the city is not pursuing compensation for the delayed return of the lot to the city.”

PACREP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The situation has garnered criticism from some members of the Waikiki community, who say that these financial calculations fail to take into account losses from nearby businesses, whose customers are going elsewhere to avoid tight parking conditions. They also don’t address the mounting frustrations of those scrambling to find affordable parking. Nor do they consider the role that parking shortages play in exacerbating Waikiki traffic by adding more circling drivers to the mix.

“We’ve been waiting so many years for this lot to reopen,” said Kozue Ng, manager of Pineapple County, a retail boutique bordering the parking lot. “Our customers used to park in the lot before. Business is getting harder and harder in Waikiki. One of the reasons is that locals don’t want to come to Waikiki because of the parking. They don’t want to have to walk.”

Ng expressed disbelief the lot had reopened since the city hadn’t informed nearby businesses. She said it’s a shame that the lot is sitting empty when local businesses could have been helping the city get the word out to customers, who don’t know it exists.

City spokesman Alex Zannes said that the city is coordinating installation of additional signage with the Waikiki Transportation Management Association to highlight the entry to the lot and the availability of parking. But he doesn’t have an estimate on the installation date.

Mark Harpenau, who lives near the Ritz-Carlton, said he’s not necessarily unhappy that few know about the parking lot. Before the lot closed in 2015, Harpenau said, it was heavily used by bar patrons, who were loud and had late-night fights.

Still, he said the empty lot is just another example of city officials failing to follow through on deals they make with developers.

“Someone ought to be reprimanded for this. The city is losing a lot of money on it,” said Harpenau, who is among the critics who previously questioned the integrity of the Ritz-Carlton’s developers, whose tower designs pushed zoning limits and required special exemptions.

Waikiki Neighborhood Board member Merz said the city needs to revisit the issue promptly. He’d like the city to pursue losses from the delayed opening and from the stall shortage.

“It’s not an insignificant amount of money that we are talking about,” Merz said.

Merz also wants the city to work with the Ritz-Carlton and the Waikiki Transportation Management Association to install additional signage to draw people into the public lot. And, if possible, he’d like the city to put marketing requirements on the Ritz-Carlton.

“The city’s goal should be to get that lot filled, but right now there is no incentive for the Ritz-Carlton to market that lot,” Merz said. “Each car that parks there is a potential irritant to their guests.”