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Pedestrians and oceangoers along the busy Kapiolani Park shoreline walkway at Queen’s Beach in Waikiki may have to watch their step a bit more than usual as work to repair and reinforce the adjacent seawall gets underway, Honolulu Mayor Rich Blangiardi and the city departments of Parks and Recreation and Design and Construction announced Thursday.
The $1.9 million city project will tackle an approximately 500-foot-long, severely eroded section of the seawall stretching from the Ewa end of Waikiki Aquarium to the Barefoot Beach Cafe, fronting the sliver of beach known as Public Baths and the popular surf spot known as Publics, which breaks far offshore, over the notoriously sharp and shallow reef.
On Friday, workers for contractor Kiewit Infrastructure Corp. began preparations at the site, erecting some fencing and warning signs around a major staging area within the park.
The contractor will utilize part of Kapiolani Park mauka of the seawall for staging of equipment throughout the project, the city said.
It advised that public access to the ocean around the work site is expected to remain open during the project, but asked that people “use caution and observe the restricted construction zone.”
Several parking stalls along
Kalakaua Avenue also will be restricted during the project, it said.
After years of being pummeled by day-to-day ocean conditions, high tides boosted by rising seas, and the big waves of summer swells, the seawall has holes in its foundation, which stands about 10 feet high on its makai side, and damage to its concrete cap, which poses a public safety hazard, according to a report by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands to its Land Board regarding the city’s conservation district use application for the seawall mitigation improvements project.
The area includes a concrete ramp damaged in July by a “king” high tide that also knocked a Honolulu Ocean Safety lifeguard tower askew.
In January in-house Department of Parks and Recreation crews repaired a damaged concrete wall, removed the eroded ramp and added new curbing to the seawall just Ewa of the current project site.
“These projects highlight the continuing impact sea level rise is having on our coastal resources,” the announcement said, “with a half-foot rise in the ocean level measured around Oahu over the last 100 years and more than 3 feet of rise projected through this century.”
It said this and other damaged waterfront infrastructure should “serve as a reminder of the need for contextual planning and projects to address sea level rise and coastal erosion island wide.”
The current project is slated to be completed by the end of the year, the city said.
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