Alvin Au, chairman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board and lifelong resident of the area, offers a hopeful assessment of developments in his childhood neighborhood of Chinatown. Despite the persistent problems managing the homelessness and crime in the area, Au said, there’s been greater vibrancy, with the arrival of new, even trendy bars and restaurants.
Looking east, though, there’s less encouragement.
"The business area is very dark and quiet," he acknowledged.
Then, more bad news: Macy’s, the latest occupant of a King Street property that’s been a retail hub for 160 years, was about to close. Architect Scott Wilson felt chagrined.
"It’s kind of a rude shock, I’ve got to admit," said Wilson, who chairs the urban design committee for the Honolulu chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "It poses a dilemma because it’s such a prominent property. From an emotional point of view, it was the one real, legitimate retailer downtown. It leaves a big void."
Depending on one’s perspective, that void when Macy’s closed on Feb. 23 represents either the tolling of a distant death knell or a grand opportunity.
Downtown — the smallish financial-commercial sector, at least — is already like a ghost town after the office workers leave each evening. The most dour outlook is that the vacant mid-rise building would continue to punctuate that emptiness for an indefinite period.
Most people are certain there will be life again at 1032 Fort Street Mall, where in 2001 Macy’s bought out the Hawaii chain of department stores, Liberty House. Just what it will be is anyone’s guess, but Stephany Sofos, a Honolulu real-estate stalwart, is willing to bet on a commercial-residential complex rising on that spot.
Sofos said that may help by diversifying the socioeconomic mix of downtown residents — a key element in any plan to revitalize the area. By itself, however, that’s not enough.
"The whole problem with downtown Honolulu is that people don’t feel comfortable there after 5 o’clock," she added. "That’s why Waikiki works. People feel comfortable and safe walking down Kalakaua.
"The quickest way to improve downtown is more lighting and maybe public restrooms for people who need them," she added. "I walked Waikiki Monday night and there was a lot of lighting everywhere. People moved safely and freely."
Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock, president of the Chinatown Business and Community Association, seconds the emotion about restrooms. Macy’s was a gracious host of commuters and other people who need to make a stop while waiting for a bus. That’s a real practical consideration, she said.
Among the area’s many challenges is balancing interests of all its constituencies, the apartment dwellers and the merchants alike.
Shubert-Kwock, also a member of the Downtown Neighborhood Board, has watched the business comings and goings in the district. She wishes the newcomers well, to the extent that they also mind their manners.
Unfortunately, she said, the kamaaina business leaders believe the city needs to clamp down on the rules that the myriad bars and other night spots must observe during its permitted street closures and promotional events. There’s been too much noise for the neighbors, she said,
"The only product they’re promoting is alcohol and loud music," Shubert-Kwock added. "Chinatown buildings are single-wall and tin-roof, and they shake like crazy.
"I’m not against them, I just want them to behave," she said. "I tell them, ‘You are part of Chinatown; Chinatown is not part of you.’"
The growing pains notwithstanding, there is still an opportunity for growth.
State Rep. Karl Rhoads holds out some hope that the expansion of Hawaii Pacific University’s urban campus, now planned in vacant space at Aloha Tower Marketplace, will provide some lift. HPU, he said, has been an invaluable partner for downtown business activity as it is.
"A few years ago they were talking about letting their leases lapse," Rhoads said. "I was on the neighborhood board then and basically begging and pleading with them not to."
Other cities have embarked on campaigns to revitalize downtown districts. Rhoads mentioned Indianapolis as an example; Sofos cited the experience in Boston.
However, Wilson said, it seems likely that any Honolulu sprucing up will have to be directed by the investors who recognize an opportunity and seize it.
"I don’t think the city is in a position to do huge subsidies," he said. "It has to be market-driven. "We”re up to our ears in debt and we have so many other pressing problems. If the city wants to help with the revitalization of downtown, it’s probably in the area of bureaucracy, streamlining the permitting process."
Honolulu’s potential is constrained somewhat by geography and history, Sofos said. Downtown is hemmed in by Honolulu Harbor at the makai end and the Capitol district immediately to the east, she said — and then there’s Chinatown.
"Why downtown has not worked is that, eons ago, when they tried to save Chinatown, it stopped the urban sprawl going Ewa," she said.
Finally, among the spurs for growth now visible on the horizon, there’s rail.
Members of Wilson’s AIA committee were outspoken opponents of the elevated rail pillars set to march along downtown’s harbor frontage. That will bring visual blight, Wilson said, and there’s little available space for the often touted transit-oriented development to happen.
However, he acknowledged, the project is sure to bring in more shoppers to the area and doubtlessly will spur business.
Some in the urban planning community happily embark on some real out-of-the-box thinking about downtown. One advocate is Karl Kim, professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Hawaii. Kim, who also directs the UH National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, on Thursday held a forum there about food security and resilience.
Kim called the conversion of Fort Street into a pedestrian mall "a grand urban experiment" that ultimately worked out well, because it enabled the hosting of the twice-weekly farmers market just opposite the old Macy’s store.
The greening of downtown Honolulu shouldn’t end there, he said: It could fit easily within an initiative promoting food sustainability, through innovations with urban agriculture.
Kim has been enamored of plans undertaken by his professional counterparts in Seoul, where there is a massive, 131-acre rooftop and hydroponic farms in the works. He points also to a "vertical farm" and food incubator that will be over- taking an abandoned building.
If downtown continues to develop as a restaurant haven, he said, providing produce sources in the area would make a lot of sense. The cultivation projects could produce spots of green relief in the conventional urban architecture, he said, and could also employ people where there is no shortage of the jobless.
Even within the bounds of more conventional urban concepts, there’s a desire for the Macy’s area to evolve into a magnet attraction, a collection of various shops and marketplaces, a real gathering place, Wilson said.
"That building was designed for a different era, with one of the biggest parking lots downtown," he said. "The notion that we would drive to that and shop there is based on a different notion than a thriving urban environment where people would live there and walk to shop."
Sofos also likes the concept of smaller shops on the site — and a residential tower would help, too.
"The way to reinvent a city is to have the four components together: residential, recreational, commercial and retail," she said.
There’s also government-owned property near the harbor that could create a spark, Sofos said.
"The downtown area is finite, so the government needs to be proactive," she said. "This means developing the waterfront across from the street adjacent to Fort Kamehameha and the immigration building, which is currently being used for Department of Health offices.
"State and city have so much, but do so little with it all," she added. "There really needs to be a public-private partnership, like other cities have, to reinvent downtown. Until then, it will continue to slowly sink into the abyss."
