[ INSIDE HAWAII INC. ]

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center General Manager Marleen Akau, right, talks with Miwa Winter, assistant manager of Cartier's. The shopping center will soon undergo renovations.

Manager to direct
‘sense of place’

Marleen Akau >> General manager of Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, Akau is overseeing a $55 million renovation and is in charge of revitalizing the 290,000-square-foot retail complex. >> She started her career as a messenger/file clerk at Kamehameha Schools in 1975. Twenty years later she had risen to general manager of Windward Mall. >> Akau is now employed by the Festival Cos., which took over management of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center this year from a unit of Kamehameha Schools.

The first quarter of 2005 is when they are projected to start the construction. It will probably take about a year to complete.

Basically, we're going back to a Hawaiian sense of place. They are talking about a royal grove area. That's where the current fountain area is at. And then we'll open up that whole place. It will have a nice view to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and that big banyan tree is going to have a water feature and a lot of palms, about 33,000 square feet of a grove area.

It's going to have grass mounds and a little amphitheater stage theater that's going to be laid out into the royal grove. And we'll have a nice gallery in place.

We're taking about having a nice hale in there where kupunas can talk story. They're going to be opening up the third floor so the restaurants are very visible from the street, so a lot of concrete will be removed. Some areas will have lanais facing Kalakaua Avenue. A lot of the escalators are going to be relocated.

They want to make it more inviting so that the people will flow right through the center and it just makes it natural. They want to use tile along the walkways so that people flow right into the mall.

A lot of the things they are using are going to look real Hawaiian. We're going to have lots of palm trees, like the area used to have.

The architects are Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo of Honolulu and Callison Architecture Inc. of Seattle.

What is the vacancy at the center?

Right now we are 62 percent occupied. By the time we complete the renovation we should be at least at 95 percent or better.

Is the Japan market back to pre-9/11 levels?

No, but it's rising, our sales are climbing back up again. So we're really happy about that. It's not enough where we had back in the good old days, 1996 and 1997.

We believe that after we complete the renovation ... we're going to bring in some new retailers that are different and try to bring the visitors and locals back. If we look at it upon the completion of the construction, we believe we will see a better impact of the visitor market.

Projection for total revenues this year?

I think the center hasn't been able to get in a positive yet since 9/11. You know how the sales kept dropping as time when time went on. A lot of merchants are on month-to-month leases. We need to keep it flexible for the renovations. I'm not sure I'm at liberty to disclose financial information.