DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Businesses along Fort Street Mall want to upgrade the area. Three of the people visiting the mall Friday were, from left, "Majesty Queen," Adeladelas Santos and Dominga Condeno. Santos and Condeno were distributing religious materials.

Fort Street Mall
may get upgrade

It may get its own improvement
district similar to Waikiki's

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

Think of Fort Street Mall as something other than a place for vagrants and pigeons.

Think of Fort Street Mall as a more vibrant marketplace by establishing the island's second business improvement district.

Fort Street Mall landowners want to borrow a page from their Waikiki business counterparts, who created the Waikiki Business Improvement District last year and now are enjoying the landscaping and maintenance improvements.

A bill introduced by downtown Councilman Jon Yoshimura will be heard by the City Council's Parks and Public Safety Committee at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow.

Under the plan, businesses within what is known as a special improvement district are assessed a fee that would bankroll "information and safety officers," landscaping and maintenance and possibly other enhancements that benefit a targeted area.

More than 97 percent of the roughly 35 landowners along Fort Street Mall -- from Beretania Street to Nimitz Highway -- have agreed to the proposal, and an unincorporated association has already been established.

Only 55 percent of all landowners need to agree to a district before it can be established through ordinance.

The owners would be assessed at a rate of $1.63 per $1,000 of assessed value as determined by the city's real property tax assessments.

Chris Nakashima-Heise, interim executive director for the association, said the idea is to supplement existing, basic city services such as security and maintenance.

"Our intention is to bring it to a higher standard of care," said Nakashima-Heise, president of the DGM Group.

Initial estimates are that the organization will be able to collect $505,000 annually for the services.

"The experience of all the property owners is that their properties are experiencing difficulties," Nakashima-Heise said.

Officials at Hawaii Pacific University are closely watching the developments, said Rick Stepien, HPU vice president for administration.

While HPU does not own any land in the area, more than 50 percent of its downtown campus calls Fort Street Mall its main entrance.

"We're in favor of any initiative that would make the mall a more secure and comfortable place to do business," Stepien said.

Like Nakashima-Heise, Stepien said an infusion of some sort is necessary.

"Just look at some of the storefronts that are vacant down at the mall," he said. "It doesn't spell good things when you've got a lot of vacancies."

Lynn Matusow, chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board, said city maintenance crews work the mall nearly 24 hours a day but cannot keep up.

"The urination, people are defecating all over the place," Matusow said. "This needs to be a place where people want to be and to feel safe."

Outrigger Enterprises director of planning Eric Masutomi, who serves as chairman of the board for the Waikiki district, said funds go primarily toward contracts for maintenance and security-hospitality services.

The district collects between $1.7 million and $1.8 million annually.

Property owners are especially happy with the landscaping and maintenance improvements, Masutomi said.

"The landscaping in Waikiki was able to be taken to a higher level."

The monthly steam-cleaning of public sidewalks has been so successful, he said, that some landowners have been shamed into scrubbing down their own areas more diligently, or into hiring the contractor to do their sections for a nominal fee.

"The key thing is, it's an assessment," Masutomi said. "It's a single group of property owners who, in effect, agreed to tax ourselves."

Yoshimura said he has been working with landowners and businesses in downtown for years to set up an improvements program, and a solution may now finally be at hand.

"We have a situation where the timing is right and it's finally going to happen," he said.