Several generations of youths living in the core of the Chinatown-downtown area have been raised there without a park. Long wait over for new
Smith-Beretania ParkResidents are excited now that
ground is broken for this
place of their ownBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.comBut that is expected to end next summer when the Smith Beretania Park is slated to open. Ground was broken by city leaders yesterday on the one-acre site, bounded by Beretania, Smith and Pauahi streets, that has been a city parking lot since 1952.
"Kids have been born, grown up and gone to college who could have played here," says Lynne Matusow, chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board.
The park, being developed at a price tag of $7.6 million, will include an area for passive recreation and a basketball/volleyball court. Below will be a 112-stall parking lot.
A city park was to have been built at Nuuanu Avenue and Beretania Street under the city's 1960s blueprint for urban renewal of Chinatown.
But in the early 1980s, developer Charles Pankow persuaded the city to allow for construction of the Honolulu Park Place condominium on that site. In exchange, Pankow agreed to contribute $5 million for development of the park, which was then moved onto the Smith-Beretania site across the street.
Christine Brown, who heads the residents association of the neighboring Smith Beretania Apartment, recalls how the residents galvanized to lobby for the park some 18 years ago.
Children and elderly in the area have had no park to call their own, she said. The closest park is Aala Park, she said, which is in the Kapalama district.
In ensuing years, the Pankow money was spent on other projects and talk turned to using the Smith-Beretania site on other projects, according to Joy Wong, a member of People Against Chinatown Evictions.
There were several proposals for commercial use and one for an auditorium. Each time, residents went to Honolulu Hale to insist they had been promised a passive park.
"The park was definitely part of providing the community with open space, a place where the children could play and senior citizens could relax," Wong said. "A lot of these people couldn't walk very far."
Meanwhile, there was growing opposition to a park from Chinatown merchants worried about lost parking.
In 1998, developers of a condominium project at nearby Block J promised to put up a dual parking lot and park at the Smith-Beretania site as part of its community improvements package.
That project, however, fell apart last year.
Finally, area Councilman Jon Yoshimura secured funding for the project as part of a supplemental budget earlier this year.
Yoshimura said he's waiting for the day that he can "hear the laughter of the kids who live around here."