The initial focus of rebuilding in Lahaina has been on residential properties. But business owners in the town's Front Street area are facing an uncertain future.
Front Street was Lahaina's main street, a place that attracted tourists and locals alike to its shops, restaurants and other businesses.
Most of those commercial buildings were destroyed by the wildfire two years ago. Today, there are empty lots of land waiting for signs of life.
Kent Untermann owns CocoNene, an art and home goods store that had a prime spot on Front Street, in a building that Untermann also owned.
He said business owners have been told they can rebuild if the new building is similar to what was there before. But he said the people who've tried to do that have gotten nowhere.
He said he's held off on trying to get building permits because there is little clarity on what he’ll be allowed to do.
Maui County has approved just 33 of the 174 non-residential permits for Lahaina. None of those approved applications has materialized into a final rebuild.
Maui County officials said residents wanted to focus on rebuilding homes before anything else. The county is also working to improve some of Lahaina's infrastructure before turning attention to the commercial lands.
But the uncertainty of what that's going to look like is holding some landowners back from putting in for permits.
Warren Freeland's family-owned Pioneer Inn hotel was lost in the fire. He said the destruction of Lahaina was like losing a member of the family.
He said that's something the landowners there care deeply about, and that's why they're actively doing what they can do to bring things back.
