Hawaii’s World
ALA Moana Center is 40 years old, same as the 50th state. Ala Moana is energetic at 40
I can remember when its acres were jammed with surplus World War II equipment, then later used to pile coral fill from offshore dredging by Dillingham corporations that owned the site.
I further remember the alarm in the downtown business community on learning a giant shopping center was planned for the Dillingham property between downtown and Waikiki. Downtowners feared it could decimate downtown retailing.
A Downtown Improvement Association was formed. It didn't stop Ala Moana Center from being built, but it did help kill off proposals to build a new state Capitol somewhere away from downtown -- either at Pier 2 or the foot of Nuuanu Pali.
DIA created a "Johnny Hustle" feeling downtown that perked up Fort Street Mall, improved Chinatown, attracted a skyscraper business hotel and promoted a market place at Aloha Tower. DIA, now defunct, left behind a downtown that is immensely attractive.
Ala Moana Center is perking up, too. It has just come out of the darkness of having its interior mall roofed for months and months to save shoppers from falling construction debris during remodeling.
The center has a new third floor, in addition to the new Neiman-Marcus store, and has a central mezzanine splitting the third floor into a Liberty House end and a Sears end.
Ala Moana was one of the first big shopping centers in America. A wonder! By some measures it could be called the biggest. Numerous bigger ones now exist, but it remains one of the biggest open mall centers.
Merchants finally are moving into their spaces in the new third floor. Biggest will be Banana Republic, occupying three floors adjacent to Sears. Others will open one by one until a grand opening is held, perhaps late in October.
The center then will have well over 200 stores compared to 87 in 1959. there will be 1.8 million square feet of commercial selling space, versus only 687,000 at the first opening.
It is quite a different center from the original -- glitzier, less "local," more tourist dependent. There is much more space for eating while shopping. Local stores are giving way to specialty stores with national names. My wife has a complaint -- kind of. The expanded Ala Moana makes it harder to bring back things from our mainland trips that can't be found here. Parking has grown from 4,000 spaces to over 8,000. It will reach 8,500 when a new four-story parking building at the mauka/downtown corner is complete.
NOR is the center finished. A major Nordstrom's department store close by J.C. Penney remains under negotiation. Reviewers have delayed but are still working over plans for an entertainment complex.
The third floor construction by Fletcher Pacific contractors was made slower and more expensive by the desire to keep stores open during the add-on. This necessitated the use of barricades allowing shoppers into stores but detouring them around necessary construction areas. One shift worked in the wee hours. But another worked during the shopping day.
I close by trying to draw a parallel between what has happened at Ala Moana Center over 40 years -- continuing controlled growth -- with what has happened to the 50th state.
The state's economy and government boomed at one period. But today they are stifled by a loss of political idealism and an oversized government muscle-bound by regulations and union contracts that usurp traditional management rights. When state economic growth was flattened by external forces in the 1990s our economy was unable to react as fast as it might have to new global opportunities. The center has adjusted better.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.