This month, Hawaii Pacific University reopened its version of Aloha Tower Marketplace as a mix of dorm rooms, classrooms and restaurants. What’s the thinking? PBN’s editor in chief, A. Kam Napier, has more.
Hawaii Pacific University has bet 50-million dollars it can do something no one else has quite managed to do… make Aloha Tower work.
Kamaaina will remember that Aloha Tower Marketplace opened in 1994 with some fanfare as an attempt to reinvent Honolulu’s industrial waterfront as a shopping and dining playground for both tourists and locals. It worked, for a bit. But from a high of 128 retailers and restaurants in 1998, tendency and foot traffic dwindled until the complex was down to just 38 stores and restaurants in 2012.
HPU now leases the center from the state and has invested 50-million to rebuild it as a kind of miniature college town modeled on similar communities it observed at USC and Georgia Tech. The second floor of the complex has been turned into dormitories, student lounges, classrooms and meeting spaces, all secured for student safety.
The transformation of Aloha Tower gives the university something it has lacked… student housing just steps away from its sizable downtown presence. Until now, HPU students have had to trek in from rented apartments in Waikiki, or HPU’s dorms at its Windward campus.
Meanwhile, you can still hit the town at Aloha Tower for dinner, a sunset drink or a little shopping without being a student. In fact, HPU would love it if you did. It’s aiming for a lively town-and-gown experience, one it feels can both enhance HPU enrollment and make Aloha Tower more interesting. HPU also thinks it has solved some of the problems that plagued past manager of the complex…for more on that, check out the cover story: Aloha Tower’s Second Chance” in Pacific Business News.
