Waikiki plans meet
further opposition

Residents say a Hilton project
would increase traffic on Dewey Lane

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By Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.com

Proposed expansion of a tiny road known as Dewey Lane continues to be at the center of the opposition to the Hilton Hawaiian Village's 350-unit Waikikian Tower.

Residents of the Ala Moana-Kalia area joined members of Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union yesterday at a public hearing, saying the improvements may worsen congestion clogging Waikiki's gateway.

"You're going to be moving all the major traffic from two towers (Waikikian and Hilton Lagoon Apartments) onto Dewey Lane," said Cindy Jacobson, a resident of the Ilikai Hotel, which is on the other side of the lane from the project. "Adding another intersection there is not going to help."

Representatives of the visitor and construction industries and the business community praised the $80 million Waikikian as a needed shot in the arm for Waikiki and the economy.

The Hilton chain wants to put up a 35-story, 350-unit time-share tower at the site of the former Waikikian Hotel. It will share a joint lobby with the 164-unit Hilton Lagoon Apartments, an existing time-share facility.

It needs Waikiki Special District and special management area use permits from the City Council. The Department of Planning & Permitting, which conducted yesterday's hearing, has 10 working days to forward a report and recommendation to the Council.

Peter Schall, Hilton Hawaiian Village general manager, said the company will use 10 feet of its own property to widen and landscape Dewey Lane, which now is little more than a 20-foot-wide utility road. Dewey will be the main entryway for the new Waikikian and Lagoon Apartments, Schall said, and Hilton will build and maintain a public sidewalk along the length of the road providing pedestrian access to the beach from the mauka side of the Hilton Lagoon.

Schall said traffic studies show creation of a new intersection and traffic signal at Dewey and Ala Moana will ease the traffic in the congested area while sprucing it up with a 12,000-square-foot pedestrian plaza.

Eric Gill, financial secretary and treasurer for Local 5, said his organization hired its own traffic consultant that estimated the project would increase existing traffic in the area by as much as 14 percent.

Gill said the union's consultant said the Hilton study did not take into consideration increased pedestrian traffic created by the new development.

David Perrigo, who lives on the 26th floor of the Ilikai and whose lanai will overlook the new parking lot, said he is worried about the sound of car alarms in the middle of the night. "Hilton does not care about anyone but Hilton," he said.

Gill and other opponents also raised concerns about the plan calling for 120 new parking stalls when Hilton employees already are being asked to park off site.

Hilton officials said they are putting up more than the required one stall for every four new hotel rooms created.

Members of the business community praised the project.

ABC Stores President Paul Kosasa showed up to endorse the plan even though it cost his company a store once housed in the old hotel. The old Waikikian, he said, had become "a dump" under its last manager, while the new Hilton project will be beneficial to all of Waikiki.