Waikiki project
may stall police

Concerns arise over various
possible impacts from the
Waikiki Beach project

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

Police and neighboring property owners are raising concerns over traffic, parking and building heights over Outrigger Enterprises' eight-acre, Waikiki Beach Walk project.

No one has raised any objections to the need for a $300 million facelift of the area bounded by Kalakaua Avenue, Lewers Street, Kalia and Saratoga roads.

Outrigger wants to create a new entertainment and retail complex by upgrading five existing hotels, demolishing six others and building one new hotel to replace the jumble of hotels, restaurants and clubs now in the area.

Only last week, Outrigger announced it had reached agreements with the last of the landowners within the eight-acre site to develop the project after some six years of negotiations.

But a slew of zoning and building exemptions being sought by Outrigger are raising some eyebrows.

For instance, Police Chief Lee Donohue and operators of both the Halekulani Hotel and the Imperial Hawaii Resort are questioning the proposed closure of a section of Helumoa Road between Beach Walk and Lewers Street.

"The closure of this heavily used roadway would eliminate needed access and would have a negative impact on the services provided by police officers in the district," according to a letter to Planning and Permitting Director Randall Fujiki from Donohue's office signed by Assistant Chief Karl Godsey.

Eric Masutomi, Outrigger's director of planning, said that his company's studies show about 80 percent of the traffic on Helumoa Road is generated by the hotel chain's own operations and that traffic will be redirected elsewhere.

Closure of Helumoa is "an integral part of the project -- we can't proceed without that," Masutomi said. Plans call for retail and "back of house" operations to be in buildings where Helumoa would be closed.

Lawrence Chang, senior vice president for Halekulani Corp., said the project would make it more difficult to get to the Halekulani and Waikiki Parc Hotels, which are on the two sides of Kalia Road.

Chang, in his letter to Fujiki, suggests that Lewers and Kalia be widened and made two-way.

Meanwhile, Pauahi Management Corp., which manages the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, wrote to the city with its concerns about Outrigger's parking and loading plan.

Outrigger's calculation shows it needs to provide 1,170 parking stalls for the project area and is proposing that it be allowed to use 193 valet stalls to count toward the total. The company also wants to reduce the total number of parking spaces by 87 stalls.

The hotelier is proposing that 250 of its required stalls be located at the Fort DeRussy parking lot, which is under the jurisdiction of the military's Hale Koa Hotel.

Richard S.H. Wong, Pauahi Management president, noted in his letter that Outrigger's arrangement with the federal government can be terminated on 30 days' notice and that could potentially cause a large shortfall of parking for the area.

Another concern deals with the height of the proposed Outrigger Saratoga Tower. Outrigger wants an exemption allowing it to build up to 350 feet, which would exceed the standard limit of 300 feet. Several other Waikiki towers, including Hilton's recently approved Waikikian Tower, are also at or near 350 feet.

But Peter Elliott, managing director of the neighboring Imperial Hawaii Resort at Waikiki, questioned the propriety of granting the exemption to Outrigger.

Masutomi said the new tower would be a trade-off that would allow development along Lewers to be far below the 300-feet and 280-feet maximum heights allowed there.

Saratoga is the ideal place to put the one, taller building proposed because it sits across from the large open area provided by Fort DeRussy.

"The height of that tower isn't as intrusive as it might be someplace else," he said. "The trade-off on that is we create a tremendous amount of light and air on Lewers Street."

Other exemptions being sought by Outrigger include:

>> An increase in density (floor area divided by lot area) to 4.68 floor area ratio from 4.46. The total square footage would go to 1,858,970 square feet from the existing 1,495,820 square feet.

>> A ground level open space percentage of 22 percent where the standard is 50 percent. The Outrigger properties currently have 21.2 percent open space. Outrigger's environmental impact statement says an advantage of the project is that it will provide "a major public benefit open space area" with its proposed 17,320 -square-foot Edgewater Plaza.

Outrigger is receptive to the issues being raised by the neighbors and the general public, Masutomi said.

"We're at the conceptual stage of the project," he said. "Comments and concerns are something we anticipated. We don't see them as necessarily negative to the process."