Images of Old Hawaiʻi

  • Home
  • About
  • Categories
    • Ali’i / Chiefs / Governance
    • American Protestant Mission
    • Buildings
    • Collections
    • Economy
    • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
    • General
    • Hawaiian Traditions
    • Other Summaries
    • Mayflower Summaries
    • Mayflower Full Summaries
    • Military
    • Place Names
    • Prominent People
    • Schools
    • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
    • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Collections
  • Contact
  • Follow

November 4, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ala Wai Boat Harbor

Waikīkī was well-suited for Hawaiian shallow-draft canoes that did not require deep water and could be easily beached.

Deeper-draft Western ships anchored off-shore, “it is unquestionably the most eligible anchoring place in the island.”  Its advantages were sandy bottom, soft coral, irregular reef and mild surf. Nonetheless, while foreign ships did anchor at Waikīkī, it was not the perfect harbor.  (Vancouver 1793)

“…On rounding Diamond hill the village of Wyteetee (Waikīkī) appears through large groves of cocoanut and bread-fruit trees … A reef of coral runs along the whole course of the shore, within a quarter of a mile of the beach, on which the sea breaks high; inside this reef there is a passage for canoes. Ships frequently anchor in the bay, in from sixteen to twenty fathoms, over a sand and coral bottom.”  (Corney, 1818)

On shore, Waikīkī was famous for its fishponds with one listing citing 45 ponds.  The ten fishponds at Kālia were loko puʻuone (isolated shore fishponds formed by a barrier sand berm) with salt-water lens intrusion and fresh water entering from upland ʻauwai (irrigation canals.)  These were later used as duck ponds.

Following the Great Māhele in 1848, many of the fishponds and irrigated and dry-land agricultural plots were continued to be farmed, however at a greatly reduced scale (due to manpower limitations.)

In the 1860s and 1870s, former Asian sugar plantation workers (Japanese and Chinese) replaced the taro and farmed more than 500-acres of wetlands in rice fields, also raising fish and ducks in the ponds.

Toward the beginning of the 1900s, downtown Honolulu was the destination for Hawaiian visitors, who numbered only about 3,000. While Honolulu had numerous hotels, there were few places to stay in Waikīkī.

In 1891, at Kālia, the ‘Old Waikiki’ opened as a bathhouse, one of the first places in Waikīkī to offer rooms for overnight guests. It was later redeveloped in 1928 as the Niumalu Hotel; the site eventually became the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

In 1906, the US War Department acquired more than 70-acres in the Kālia portion of Waikīkī for the establishment of a military reservation to be called Fort DeRussy.

The Army started filling in the fishponds which covered most of the Fort site – pumping fill from the ocean continuously for nearly a year in order to build up an area on which permanent structures could be built.  Thus, the Army began the transformation of Waikīkī from wetlands to solid ground.

As part of the government’s Waikīkī Land Reclamation project, the Waikīkī landscape was further transformed with the construction of the Ala Wai Drainage Canal – begun in 1921 and completed in 1928 – resulted in the draining and filling in of the ponds and irrigated fields of Waikīkī.

During the 1920s (before Ala Moana Park,) a barge channel was dredged parallel to the shore through the coral reef to connect Kewalo Basin to Fort DeRussy.

Part of the dredge material helped to reclaim wetland that was filled in with dredged coral; this created the area now known as Ala Moana Park (completed in 1934.)

Smaller boats, moored in the dredged area, also traveled along this channel to Kewalo Basin to get out to sea.  While no formal facilities were built, boats anchored in the nearshore waters; this was the beginning of the Ala Wai Boat Harbor.

Portions of the coastal area were used as a public park (1936-1947.)   Around this time, the land was conveyed from the City to the State (1949) and some land-based boat-related uses started popping up.

Ala Moana Park grew in popularity as swimming beach; with growing use and concern for interaction between Park users and boaters, in 1951, a channel was dredged directly out to sea.  The reef rubble that was dredged was used to fill in this old navigation channel (between Kewalo and the Ala Wai Harbor.)

Over the years, the Harbor grew incrementally.

The Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor is the State’s largest recreational boat harbor, among about fifty small boat harbors, launching ramps, jetties, wharves and landings statewide transferred from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation.

It consists of about 700 berths. There are also dry berthing spaces, a harbor agent’s office, comfort stations, showers, paved parking, a launching ramp and pier.

In 2022, there were nearly 333.3-million people in the US. There were close to 12-million registered recreational water vessels in that year, meaning that about 4% of our population owns a recreational watercraft of some sort.

Hawaiʻi, the only island state completely surrounded by water, ranks last (50th) in the number of boats, as well as boats per capita in the country (Florida ranks 1st in the number of boats; Minnesota ranks 1st per capita.)

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks, General, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Waikiki, Oahu, Kewalo Basin, Kewalo, Ala Wai, Ala Moana, Ala Wai Boat Harbor, Aina Moana

August 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ala Moana Beach Park and ʻĀina Moana (Magic Island)

In 1899, the coastal road from Honolulu Harbor to Waikīkī, formerly called the “Beach Road,” was renamed “Ala Moana.”

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, this stretch of coast makai of Ala Moana Boulevard was the site of the Honolulu garbage dump, which burned almost continually.  The residue from burned rubbish was used to reclaim neighboring wetlands (which later were more commonly referred to as “swamp lands.”)

In the 1920s, Kewalo Basin was constructed and by the 1930s was the main berthing area for the sampan fleet and also the site of the tuna cannery, fish auction, shipyard, ice plant, fuel dock and other shore-side facilities.

In 1928, a channel was dredged through the coral reef to connect the Ala Wai Boat Harbor and the Kewalo Basin, so boats could travel between the two.  Part of the dredge material helped to reclaim swampland that was filled in with dredged coral.

When the area became a very popular swimming beach, the channel was closed to boat traffic.

The City and County of Honolulu started cleaning up the Ala Moana area in 1931. They used funds provided by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Project to create a city park in the Ala Moana area.

Back in the early twentieth century, most playgrounds consisted of large areas of pavement used to get children off of the street and had no aesthetic value.

In 1933, Harry Sims Bent was chosen as the park architect for the City and County of Honolulu.  Bent’s design went beyond the modern level and into the realm of art deco, allowing for play, as well as contact with nature.  His works at Ala Moana include the canal bridge, entrance portals, sports pavilion, banyan courtyard and the lawn bowling green.

President Roosevelt participated in the dedication of the new 76-acre “Moana Park” in 1934 (it was later renamed Ala Moana Park in 1947.)  During his visit to the islands, Roosevelt also planted a kukui tree on the grounds of the ʻIolani Palace.

Ala Moana Park was developed on a swamp and the Honolulu garbage dump.

In the mid-1950s, reef rubble was dredged to fill in the old navigation channel (between Kewalo and the Ala Wai); it was topped with sand brought from Keawaʻula Beach (Yokohama Beach) in Waianae.

At the same time, a new swimming channel was dredged parallel to the new beach, extending 400-feet offshore; in addition, the west end of the fronting channel was closed by a landfill project that was part of the Kewalo Basin State Park project.  A large fringing reef remained off-shore protecting the beach area.

Reportedly, in 1955, Henry Kaiser was the first to propose building two artificial islands and six hotels over the fringing reef.  His proposal included inlets for boats, walkways and bridges. He called it Magic Island and offered to pay the $50-million cost.  (Sigall, Star-Advertiser)

In 1958, a 20-page booklet was sent to Congress to encourage them to turn back Ala Moana Reef to the Territory of Hawaiʻi for the construction of a “Magic Island.”  Local businessmen and firms paid half the cost and the Territory paid half through the Economic Planning & Coordination Authority)   (Dillingham interests were among contributors, Henry J. Kaiser interests were not.)   (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

The booklet puts forth the argument that “Tourist development is our most important immediate potential for economic expansion,” and displays pictures of the crowded Waikiki area to show the lack of room for expansion.  Then it directs the reader’s attention to land that can be reclaimed from the sea by utilizing reefs, especially the 300-acre area of Ala Moana Reef.  (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

It was supposed to be part of a new high scale beachfront resort complex with a half-dozen hotels that would have included two islands built on the fringing reef, offshore of the Ala Moana Park.

The Interest of the Dillingham’s in developing off-shore areas is obvious, since Hawaiian Dredging is the only local company large enough to undertake such sizable dredging operations.

The Dillingham interest in the current “Magic Island” project is more obvious because of the immediate increase in value it would bring to Dillingham land mauka of Ala Moana Boulevard.  (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

The Dillinghams figure to do the dredging and construction of Magic Island, itself, of course, and it must be recalled that the original Dillingham idea was to use Ala Moana Park for hotels and apartments and build the reef island for a park.  (Honolulu Record, May 15, 1958)

But now that Magic Island is being proposed as a hotel and apartment site, it doesn’t mean for a moment the first plan has necessarily been abandoned. There is good reason to fear Ala Moana Park may be wiped out entirely so far as the people of Oahu are concerned if they don’t keep alert and guard” against every effort to encroach upon it.  (Honolulu Record, May 15, 1958)

Substantial changes were made from the more extensive original plan for the Ala Moana reef; rather than multiple islands for several resort hotels built on the reef flat off of the Ala Moana Park, in 1964 a 30-acre peninsula, with “inner” and “outer” beaches for protected swimming, was constructed adjoining the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor and Ala Wai Canal outlet.

The project stopped after the development of “Magic Island,” leaving the State with a man-made peninsula, which they converted into a public park.

In 1972 the State officially renamed Magic Island to ‘Āina Moana (“land [from the] sea”) to recognize that the park is made from dredged coral fill. The peninsula was turned over the city in a land exchange and is formally known as the ‘Āina Moana Section of Ala Moana Beach Park, but many local residents still call it Magic Island.

Between 1955 and 1976 the beach eroded, and in 1976, more sand was brought in from Mokuleʻia on the north coast of Oʻahu.

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

 

Filed Under: General, Economy, Place Names Tagged With: Henry Kaiser, Hawaii, Oahu, Kewalo Basin, Dillingham, Ala Moana, Ala Wai Boat Harbor, Aina Moana, Ala Wai Canal

September 26, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Swillauea”

In 1898, the US Army built a seawall and filled a submerged coral reef on the ‘Ewa (western) side of Kaʻākaukukui for a gun emplacement at Fort Armstrong to protect the mouth of adjoining Honolulu Harbor.

At the turn of the century, Ala Moana Boulevard was built at what was then the shoreline, and the broad areas on both sides of the future Kapiʻolani Boulevard consisted of rice fields.

The dredging of harbors, offshore areas and the Ala Wai Canal provided fill for the reclamation of the ‘swamps.’  The construction of the Ala Wai stopped the annual flooding of Waikīkī.

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, the stretch of coast makai of Ala Moana Boulevard between Fort Armstrong (Piers 1 & 2 at Honolulu Harbor) and Waikīkī was the site of the Honolulu garbage dump, which burned almost continually.

The residue from burned rubbish was also used to reclaim wetlands.  This residue provided a fill that was quite inert and solid.  Thus, a rubbish dump was considered a cost-free method for a landowner to reclaim swampy land.

Since at least the 1850s, the Hawaiian Monarchy was providing urban public services in Honolulu, including refuse collection and disposal.  Horse-drawn wagons were first used for the collection of refuse; the horses were stabled in Kakaʻako.

Following Annexation and Territorial status (1900,) garbage removal was one of six items listed in the Oʻahu County’s 1905 monthly operating expenses, along with the police and fire departments, the electric light plant, city parks and the Royal Hawaiian Band.  The only direct income for Oʻahu County was its refuse collection fees.

Oʻahu, like many other coastal communities, was ringed with tidelands.  The area was traditionally noted for its fishponds and salt pans, and for the marsh lands where pili grass and other plants could be collected.  About one-third of the coastal plain at Kakaʻako was a wetland.  The entire shoreline was coral rubble bordered by fringing reefs and mudflats.

As time went on, when the fishponds were no longer used, they were more often than not filled with material dredged from the ocean or hauled from nearby areas, garbage and general material from other sources. These reclaimed areas provided valuable new land near the heart of growing urban Honolulu.

The ʻili of Kaʻākaukukui was awarded by land court to Victoria Kamāmalu; Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop inherited the land, which later became part of the Kamehameha Schools (formerly the Bishop Estate). The Territory of Hawai‘i acquired the land in 1919.

Just as the Army had done at Fort Armstrong, the government built a new seawall, extending east to reclaim more Kaʻākaukukui reef and submerged land.

During the 1920s, the channel and basin on the Waikīkī (eastern) side of the growing Kakaʻako peninsula was dredged as a small boat harbor, called Kewalo Basin, to relieve overcrowding at Honolulu Harbor by the sampan (tuna fishing) fleet.

Hawaiian Dredging Company completed Kewalo Basin’s wharf and channel in 1925, and by 1930 the sampan fishing fleet was relocated to their new base.

In 1930, a garbage incinerator was constructed on Mohala Street (now ʻĀhui Street) near the east end of the Kakaʻako seawall (near Kewalo Basin.)  This moved the open dump fires into a more controlled and contained facility.

In 1931, the City and County of Honolulu dedicated the land on the Waikīkī-side of Kewalo Basin as Moana Park (the name was later changed to Ala Moana (“the path to the sea.”))

After the 1930 incinerator was constructed on ʻĀhui Street, the Star-Bulletin named it “Swillauea” (a play with words associated with the long burning fires of Kīlauea volcano on Hawai‘i Island) and lamented, “… Oh Swillauea-by-the-Sea … a monument to despair, foolishness and ugliness … all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t find another place to burn the City’s rubbish except in the City’s front yard ….” (Mason Architects)

In the 1940s, another, larger incinerator was added, as well as a significant new seawall, 500-feet seaward of the old shoreline, enclosing more acreage of tidelands to be filled with the post-combusted ash.   (The large boulders laid in the wall lining Kewalo Channel and around the point came from Punchbowl Crater during the initial development of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific by James W. Glover, Ltd.)

Incinerator Number One was later removed from service after the new incinerator on ʻOhe Street was constructed in 1946-48.  With the completion of the seawall in 1949, filling operations began and by the mid-1950s the shallow reef of Ka’ākaukukui was completely covered over.

And, again, in 1950 another seawall was extended and ash filled areas making more usable acreage.  Following statehood in 1959, government officials met to discuss the near-completion of the fill behind the seawall.   As the height increased, the State expressed concern over the mountain of ash which was growing so rapidly.

The State finally told the City in 1971 to stop placing any more ash to the pile.  Parts of the ash pile were then 25 feet above the top of the seawall.

The incinerator was finally shut down in 1977 because it could not meet the increasingly stringent air pollution standards. Then, in 1992, the State constructed Kakaʻako Waterfront Park on the ash pile (the young and young-at-heart now slide on cardboard down the steep grass-covered incinerator ash hill.)

The second incinerator, on ʻOhe Street, was renovated and is now used as the Children’s Discovery Center.  (The initial incinerator on ʻĀhui Street was used in 1952 by United Fishing Agency as part of their fish auction facility – the fish auction has since relocated to the Commercial Fishing Village at Pier 38.)

(Lots of information here is from the Historic American Buildings Survey for the Kewalo Incinerator and Cultural Surveys.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Place Names, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Kewalo Basin, Kewalo, Kakaako, Kaakaukukui, Ala Moana

November 2, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Transformation of Ala Moana Coastline

The coastal road from Honolulu Harbor to Waikīkī, formerly called the “Beach Road” and renamed “Ala Moana” in 1899, hugged the shoreline with extensive reefs out into the ocean; mauka of the road were wetlands and aquaculture with fishponds, kalo (taro) and, later, rice.

This stretch of coastline was described by missionary Hiram Bingham, as he stood atop “Punchbowl Hill” looking toward Waikīkī to the south, as the “plain of Honolulu” with its “fishponds and salt making pools along the seashore”. (Bingham)

Another visitor to Honolulu in the 1820s, Capt. Jacobus Boelen, gives similar insight to the possible pre-contact character of the area:  “It would be difficult to say much about Honoruru (Honolulu.) On its southern side is the harbor or the basin of that name.”

“The landlocked side in the northwest consists mostly of tarro (kalo, taro) fields. …  From the north toward the east, where the beach forms the bight of Whytetee (Waikīkī,) the soil around the village is less fertile, or at least not greatly cultivated.” (Cultural Surveys)

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, this stretch of coast makai of Ala Moana Boulevard was the site of the Honolulu garbage dump, which burned almost continually.  The residue from burned rubbish was used to reclaim neighboring wetlands (which later were more commonly referred to as “swamp lands.”)

After the turn of the century and over the next several decades, channels and basins were dredged in the fringing reefs to obtain fill material, for navigation, for small craft harbors and for swimming and sea bathing.

“Nature, situation and human circumstance fix world-wide prominence and importance on certain strategic points in commerce, navigation and defense. Human events have moved slowly, but are becoming intensely accelerated, and it would seem Honolulu is now beginning to fulfil her destiny.” So said Mr. LE Pinkham, President of the Board of Health in 1906.

With his report, he recommended filling in the wetlands from downtown Honolulu to Waikīkī and noted, “To install an adequate sewer system and proper surface drainage … (the area) under consideration, requires to be raised to a grade ranging from five to seven feet above sea level. Neither the hills mauka nor the beach can physically or economically furnish the material.”

Shortly thereafter (1912,) the Sanitary Commission in its report to Governor Frear noted, “The low lands along the sea front of six miles are largely swamps. Wherever profitable they are used for wet agriculture, and the area of wet land has been enlarged until it is difficult now to distinguish between them, nor can the source of water in the swamps be determined except by survey; much of it is water from irrigation. The total area of wet land is 36 per cent, of the land below the foothills.”

Like Pinkham, the Sanitary Commission stated, “It is obvious that all swamps and low lands which may become swamps should be filled or otherwise reclaimed, in order that their ever-present menace to health shall be entirely and finally removed.”  This led to a variety of projects that changed the look, nature and use of the region.

The first efforts were concentrated at Kakaʻako – it was then more generally referred to as “Kewalo.”  The Kewalo Reclamation District included the area bounded by South Street, King Street, Ward Avenue and Ala Moana Boulevard.

In 1899, the first traditional Japanese sailing vessel, called a sampan, came to Hawai‘i.  The Japanese technique of catching tuna with pole-and-line and live bait resembled the aku fishing method traditionally used by Hawaiians.  The pole-and-line vessels mainly targeted skipjack tuna (aku.)

Initially, most sampans docked in Honolulu Harbor. In the 1920s, Kewalo Basin was constructed and by the 1930s was the main berthing area for the sampan fleet and also the site of the tuna cannery, fish auction, shipyard, ice plant, fuel dock and other shore-side facilities.

Later in the 1920s, a channel parallel to the coast was dredged through the coral reef to connect Kewalo Basin and Ala Wai Boat Harbor, so boats could travel between the two.  Part of the dredge material helped to reclaim swampland on the ʻEwa end of Waikīki that was filled in with dredged coral.

The City and County of Honolulu started cleaning up the Ala Moana area in 1931. Using funds from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Project a city park was created – filling in the swamp and garbage dump with coral rubble, topping it with sand. President Roosevelt participated in the dedication of the new 76-acre “Moana Park” in 1934 (it was later renamed Ala Moana Park in 1947.)

In 1944 the Territorial Department of Public Works proposed that an airport for private flying be created by a combined coral dredging and fill project on the reef between downtown Honolulu and the Waikīkī section of the city.  A Master Plan for Ala Moana Airport was approved by the federal agencies as part of the 1947 National Airport Plan. The runway was to be located makai of Ala Moana Park on the fringing reef and consist of a single runway 3,000 feet by 75 feet.

In the mid-1950s, reef rubble was dredged to fill in the old navigation channel (between Kewalo and the Ala Wai); it was topped with sand brought from Keawaʻula Beach (Yokohama Beach (locally known as ‘Pray for Sex’)) in Waianae.  At the same time, a new swimming channel was dredged parallel to the new beach, extending about 400-feet offshore.

In 1958, a 20-page booklet was sent to Congress to encourage them to turn back Ala Moana Reef to the Territory of Hawaiʻi for the construction of a “Magic Island.”  Local businessmen and firms paid half the cost and the Territory paid half, through the Economic Planning & Coordination Authority.   (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

The booklet put forth the argument that “Tourist development is our most important immediate potential for economic expansion,” and displays pictures of the crowded Waikīkī area to show the lack of room for expansion.  Then it directs the reader’s attention to land that can be reclaimed from the sea by utilizing reefs, especially the 300-acre area of Ala Moana reef.  (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

With statehood (1959,) some considered the makai-most portion of filled-in area of Kakaʻako peninsula for the location for a new State capitol.  They settled on the present location, mauka of ʻIolani Palace.

In the early 1960s, substantial changes were made from the more extensive original plan for the Ala Moana reef; rather than multiple islands for several resort hotels built on the reef flat off of Ala Moana Park, a 30-acre peninsula, with “inner” and “outer” beaches for protected swimming, was constructed adjoining the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor and Ala Wai Canal outlet.

The Magic Island peninsula was converted into a public park. In 1972 the State officially renamed Magic Island to ‘Āina Moana, or “land [from the] sea,” to recognize that the park is made from dredged coral fill. The peninsula was turned over the city in a land exchange and is formally known as the ‘Āina Moana Section of Ala Moana Beach Park, but local residents still call it Magic Island.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook 

Follow Peter T Young on Google+ 

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn  

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

© 2019 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Place Names, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Kewalo, Kakaako, Ala Wai, Ala Moana, Aina Moana

August 13, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ala Moana Center

In ancient times, the area was known as Kālia – an ʻili in the ahupuaʻa of Waikīkī – that runs from the present Halekūlani Hotel to Piʻikoi Street (generally, makai of Kalākaua Avenue.)  Pi‘inaio Stream was the dominant feature of this eastern area of Waikīkī.

The ten fishponds at Kālia were loko puʻuone (isolated shore fishponds formed by a barrier sand berm) with salt-water lens intrusion and fresh water entering from upland ʻauwai (canals.)

Kālia was once renowned for the fragrant limu līpoa, as well as several other varieties of seaweed such as manauea, wāwaeʻiole, ʻeleʻele, kala and some kohu.

At the turn of the 20th century, portions of this marshy wetland were determined to be “deleterious to the public health in consequence of being low, and at times covered or partly covered by water, or of being situated between high and low water mark, or of being improperly drained, or incapable by reasonable expenditure of effectual drainage”.

A portion of this was owned by the Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate who reportedly sold 50-acres of this “unproductive” “swamp land” for $25,000 to Walter F Dillingham in 1912.   At the time this was real money and people questioned his decision.

However, shortly thereafter, Dillingham used the site to dispose of excess coral and other fill that was generated from land reclamation projects from Kewalo to Waikīkī (including the dredging of the Ala Wai Canal.)

In 1948, Lowell Dillingham, Walter’s son, announced plans for a new shopping complex on the coral-covered parcel.  Nearly 10-years later, construction on Hawaiʻi’s first regional shopping center commenced.  (Lowell is also credited the formation of Dillingham Corporation, a merger of the Oahu Railway & Land Company and the Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Company, in 1961.)

Dillingham’s Don Graham was the force behind the design and development of the center.  It proved a success after its opening, and relocated retail away from downtown Honolulu.

On August 13, 1959, over a thousand people gathered near the Sears’ end for the grand opening of Ala Moana Center.  They say the first purchase in the center was made by Ben Dillingham and his wife, a tube of Colgate toothpaste at Sears

At the time of its opening, Ala Moana Center had 680,000-square feet of leasable area, with 87 stores on two levels and 4,000 parking spaces; and was considered the largest shopping mall in the world.  Original stores included anchors Sears and Shirokiya, plus locally-owned The Slipper House.

The center doubled in size in 1966 to 1,351,000-square feet of leasable area, with 155 stores and 7,800 parking spaces. New stores included anchor tenants JC Penney and Liberty House.

1987 saw the 2-year phase three renovation, relocation of certain tenants and creation of the Makai Market food court (the largest food court in Hawai‘i and one of the largest food courts in the nation.)

Other phases of expansion and renovation occurred over the years so that today, with 2.1-million square feet of retail space, Ala Moana Center has over 290 stores, including 70 dining options, nearly 10,000 parking spaces and is the world’s largest open-air mall – with shopping for the basics to the elite brand name.

Today, Ala Moana Center is one of the top grossing, highest occupancy rate and sales per square foot malls in the US and welcomes 40- to 60-million shopping visits per year.

Changes are again underway at Ala Moana, with redevelopment of the former Sears site to accommodate Bloomingdales and other shops – this will add another 340,000-SF of retail space and another 1,000-parking stalls.

Some of Ala Moana’s original tenants are still in the shopping center: US Post Office, Territorial Savings Bank, Longs Drugs, Reyn’s, Watamull’s, Shirokiya and Foodland.

Oh, about Dillingham’s questioned $25,000 land buy back in 1912 … the City and County of Honolulu 2013 assessed value (for just the land) is $355,455,200.

(Dillingham Corporation was sold to a private investment group in 1983 for $347-million; in 2003, with base facilities relocated to California, Dillingham Corporation filed for bankruptcy.)

The image shows the vacant coral-filled site of the future Ala Moana Center.  In addition, I have added other images to a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook  

Follow Peter T Young on Google+  

© 2013 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General Tagged With: Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, Oahu, Kewalo, Dillingham, Ala Moana, Ala Wai Canal, Ala Moana Center, Kalia

Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Connect with Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Lanai City Schools
  • Happy Mother’s Day!
  • 250 Years Ago … Green Mountain Boys
  • Rock Silo to Bell Tower
  • Mourning Kamehameha’s Death
  • Kawaihae Harbor
  • Education in Hawaiʻi

Categories

  • General
  • Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance
  • Buildings
  • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
  • Hawaiian Traditions
  • Military
  • Place Names
  • Prominent People
  • Schools
  • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
  • Economy
  • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Mayflower Summaries
  • American Revolution

Tags

Albatross Al Capone Ane Keohokalole Archibald Campbell Bernice Pauahi Bishop Charles Reed Bishop Downtown Honolulu Eruption Founder's Day George Patton Great Wall of Kuakini Green Sea Turtle Hawaii Hawaii Island Hermes Hilo Holoikauaua Honolulu Isaac Davis James Robinson Kamae Kamaeokalani Kamanawa Kameeiamoku Kamehameha Schools Lalani Village Lava Flow Lelia Byrd Liliuokalani Mao Math Mauna Loa Midway Monk Seal Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Oahu Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Pearl Pualani Mossman Queen Liliuokalani Thomas Jaggar Volcano Waikiki Wake Wisdom

Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Copyright © 2012-2024 Peter T Young, Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Loading Comments...